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International Fact-Finding Missions

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The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Security Studies

Introduction

Paragraph 2 of the 1991 Declaration on Fact-Finding by the United Nations in the Field of the Maintenance of International Peace and Security (hereinafter the “UN Declaration on Fact-Finding”) defines “fact-finding” as “any activity designed to obtain detailed knowledge of the relevant facts of any dispute or situation which the competent United Nations organs need in order to exercise effectively their functions in relation to the maintenance of international peace and security.” In UN jargon, fact-finding is also referred to as inquiry. The UN library online, for example, refers indistinctly to fact-finding missions or commissions of inquiry. Hence, this contribution employs the two terms interchangeably.

Nowadays, the term “international fact-finding missions” indicates groups of experts appointed ad hoc to investigate the factual circumstances of interstate disputes, widespread human rights violations, or individual violent episodes and report their findings to their...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York, York, UK

    Piergiuseppe Parisi

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  1. Piergiuseppe Parisi
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Correspondence to Piergiuseppe Parisi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Alberta, Alberta, AB, Canada

    Scott Romaniuk

  2. University for Peace, San Jose, Costa Rica

    Manish Thapa

  3. Nemzetkozi Tanulmanyok Intezet, Rm 503, Corvinus Univ, Inst of Intl Studies, Budapest, Hungary

    Péter Marton

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Parisi, P. (2019). International Fact-Finding Missions. In: Romaniuk, S., Thapa, M., Marton, P. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Security Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74336-3_74-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74336-3_74-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-74336-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-74336-3

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