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Fourteen members of Syrian civil society recently gathered for a five-day workshop on community facilitation and transitional justice organized by ICTJ and its partners in the Bridges of Truth project. The workshop marked a major step in the preparation for extensive community dialogues that will take place across Syria in the months ahead.

ICTJ recently convened human rights defenders, journalists, and lawyers from Libya, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen for a workshop on digital, open-source investigations. Held on November 3-8 in Kampala, Uganda, the course trained participants on open-source tools with a view to strengthening their work investigating, documenting, and monitoring human rights violations.

The outlet PassBlue recently interviewed ICTJ Executive Director Fernando Travesí-Sanz about the challenges and breakthroughs ICTJ has encountered while facilitating a victims-led path to transitional justice in post-Assad Syria. Travesí-Sanz compared the experience to the lessons learned from Colombia’s post-conflict transition, revealing the nuanced, fragile nature of both retroactive justice and long-term peacebuilding.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Justice and Peace Law—which created Colombia's first transitional justice system—media outlet Verdad Abierta, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and ICTJ partnered to produce an investigative four-part series in Spanish that critically assesses its legacy. Now translated into English, this second installment explores the unprecedented challenges the country faced as the process got underway.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Justice and Peace Law—which created Colombia's first transitional justice system—media outlet Verdad Abierta, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and ICTJ partnered to produce an investigative four-part series in Spanish that critically assesses its legacy. Now translated into English, this first installment provides an overview of the process.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Justice and Peace Law—which created Colombia's first transitional justice system—media outlet Verdad Abierta, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and ICTJ partnered to produce an investigative four-part series in Spanish that critically assesses its legacy. ICTJ has now translated the first two installments into English.

This year, Colombia commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Justice and Peace Law, which established the country’s first formal transitional justice mechanism. On this milestone anniversary, ICTJ reflects on the evolution that led to the groundbreaking law, the lessons that have been learned so far, and the challenges that lie ahead.

ICTJ, in collaboration with the Center for Media Integrity of the Americas, the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice, and the New York City Bar Association, recently hosted a screening of the Colombian documentary Después del Frío ("After the Cold"). Coproduced by ICTJ and Colombian journalist María Jimena Duzán, with the support of the Embassies of Sweden and Norway in Colombia, the film paints an intimate portrait of a nation seeking healing and transformation, where the scars of the past give way to hope.

This year, Colombia commemorates the 20th anniversary of Law 975, which established the country’s first transitional justice process, called Justicia y Paz (or Justice and Peace). With this anniversary top on mind, and as the current government engages with eight of the remaining armed groups in pursuit of its “Total Peace” strategy, ICTJ recently teamed up with podcast producers Sillón Estudios to create a four-part series that delves into the peace process with the AUC and considers key lessons learned.

At the end of April in Syria, dozens of local residents in several cities and towns sat down together for the first time to finally speak about their experiences during the 14-year conflict that tore society apart and resulted in countless human rights violations. These community dialogues, organized by ICTJ in partnership with the Bridges of Truth project, provided a safe space for participants to share their stories and hardships, discuss their needs, and express their hopes for justice and reconciliation.

From May 25 to June 1, 2025, ICTJ held a series of community dialogues in three rural regions of the Gambia on sexual and gender-based violence, including crimes committed during the Yahya Jammeh dictatorship. The dialogues brought together 122 individuals, including community leaders, victims, and young people, to share their experiences and discuss pathways for justice.

In recent years, states have increasingly imposed sanctions in relation to the commission of human rights violations, which has expanded their potential to advance transitional justice goals. In this context, ICTJ recently published a new report offering an analysis of international sanctions from a transitional justice perspective. In this interview, the report's author, ICTJ Senior Expert Elena Naughton, discusses how sanctions may advance or hinder efforts to deliver accountability, acknowledge and redress victims, and prevent recurrence in response to massive human rights abuses.

Since 2014, conflict in Yemen has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, displaced millions, destroyed the economy, and exacerbated systemic marginalization, creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes. Yet currently, transitional justice and reconciliation take up little space in the Yemeni political arena. In this context, ICTJ has released a new report that explores pathways to a just and sustainable peace in Yemen.

As part of the new digital campaign "Reparations Build Justice," the ICTJ team would like to share the keynote address given by ICTJ Director of Programs and Deputy Executive Director Anna Myriam Roccatello at a recent conference on issues related to providing reparations through international criminal courts. In her remarks, Roccatello describes the inextricable link between accountability and reparation as well as ICTJ’s unwavering commitment to victims of massive human rights abuses.

On August 13, 2024, the International Crimes Division of the High Court of Uganda delivered its long-awaited verdict in the case of Uganda versus Thomas Kwoyelo, a former commander and colonel in the rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army. Mr. Kwoyelo was convicted on 44 counts of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and other serious crimes committed during the decades-long armed conflict in Northern Uganda between the LRA and the Ugandan government. This judgment represents a significant milestone in the pursuit of justice and accountability and a crucial step toward acknowledging the suffering of the victims of these horrific mass atrocities.

Almost eight years since The Gambia's former President Yahya Jammeh left power, the country is still seeking justice for the human rights abuses committed during his 22-year dictatorship. In May 2023, the Ministry of Justice released a plan to implement the recommendations of the country's Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission. While the plan promises to deliver justice and repair harms, for it to have its intended impact, it requires broad public participation in the process, especially that of young people. With that in mind, ICTJ has partnered with the UN Peacebuilding Fund on a project to encourage Gambian youth to take a leading role in this process and the country's future.

In February 2024, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights hosted an event in Seoul, South Korea, marking the 10th anniversary of the release of the report of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. ICTJ Senior Expert Ruben Carranza spoke at the event and discussed lessons learned involving nonjudicial forms of accountability. In this interview, he talks about why a broader approach to transitional justice is necessary and how transitional justice measures can help promote peace and possible reunification on the peninsula.

On February 13, 2024, the interactive cultural exhibit “If There Is Truth, There Is Future” opened to the public at Bogotá’s Center for Memory, Peace and Reconciliation. As part of the Colombian Truth Commission’s post-closure cultural and educational outreach activities, the exhibit aims to inform Colombians of all generations about the commission’s findings and inspire them to take action to prevent a recurrence of conflict.

On November 28, 2023, ICTJ organized an international dialogue in Bogotá, Colombia, to share innovative strategies for advancing victims’ rights to redress for human rights abuses and for establishing more victim-centered development policies. The gathering also marked the official launch of ICTJ’s new report—Advancing Victims’ Rights and Rebuilding Just Communities Local Strategies for Achieving Reparation as a Part of Sustainable Development—which presents findings from a two-year comparative study of local efforts in Colombia, The Gambia, Tunisia, and Uganda to advance reparations.

More than 20 years after the end of the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, Kosovo is still contending with unresolved ethnic tensions. Formerly an autonomous region of Serbia within the former Yugoslavia, Kosovo declared independence in 2008. Ethnic tensions were a root cause of the violent conflicts, during which an estimated 140,000 died and numerous atrocities were committed. ICTJ recently sat down with ICTJ's Anna Myriam Roccatello and Kelli Muddell to learn more about ICTJ's work and the present challenges to truth and justice in the country.

The photography exhibition “All Our Tears” weaves together the stories of victims from the wars in the Western Balkan region in the 1990s. It consists of photographs taken by four photographers in various locations in Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia, and was part of a three-year project funded by the European Union that brought together civil society organizations and victims’ groups in Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia, along with the international organizations ICTJ and PAX to develop meaningful, victim-led peacebuilding and reconciliation initiatives in the region.

“Despite laws already in place, the number of sexual and gender-based violence [SGBV] cases is still rising, including cases of rape, female genital mutilation, sexual assault, and harassment. This means there is the need for enforcement of such laws,” asserted Didier Gbery, ICTJ’s head of program for The Gambia, at the opening of a workshop this past March on increasing SGBV victims’ access to justice. The workshop was one of two that ICTJ organized in early 2023 to strengthen the capacity of stakeholders in The Gambia to defend SGBV victims and provide them with vital gender-sensitive support.

In a fast-changing world, ICTJ regularly reexamines and adapts its methodology to develop innovative solutions to emerging problems, advance its mission, and achieve justice for victims of human rights violations. In that spirit, ICTJ recently launched an exciting new website and newsletter design. After over a year of research, planning, surveying stakeholders, designing, and testing, we unveiled a site that better aligns with what ICTJ and transitional justice are today.

Libyan civil society organizations are fighting against all odds to support victims of human rights violations. In doing so, they themselves risk violence and do their work despite the visible and invisible pain they feel and the innumerable obstacles placed in front of them. Renewed global attention on the Libyan conflict and two new draft laws to protect activists and others may help.

In Lebanon, in the absence of an overarching curriculum, young people are growing up with scant knowledge of the country’s history. Young people want to understand the war so that they can address its legacy of violence and divisions and face the continuing violence and ever-present danger of...

On June 21-23, Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction of Peace (JEP) held its first acknowledgment hearing on the taking hostages, serious deprivation of liberty, and other concurrent crimes (known as Case 01) in Bogotá. Seven former leaders of the guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army (FARC-EP) acknowledged their command responsibility for the kidnapping crimes that were the FARC-EP’s policy from 1993 to 2012 in the presence of victims, JEP officials, civil society representatives, and members of the press. This hearing marks the first time ever FARC-EP leaders publicly acknowledged their role in such systemic crimes. A decisive step in the country’s restorative justice process, it would not have been possible without years of preparation.

The role of victim participation in international criminal proceedings, whether in international, hybrid, or national courts, has long been a matter of public deliberation among criminal justice practitioners and human rights activists. In the aftermath of mass atrocities and repression, the...

International Center for Transitional Justice The Final Peace Agreement signed in 2016 between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) guerrillas and the Colombian government created an ambitious and innovative transitional justice system called the Comprehensive System of Truth...

Transitional justice can contribute to prevention of violence and abuse, particularly if it addresses common drivers such as exclusion and associated grievances. It can facilitate the inclusion of social groups that have suffered human rights violations and marginalization, and promote long-term...