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As part of its ongoing support of the Committee of the Families of the Kidnapped and Disappeared in Lebanon, ICTJ organized a three-day virtual workshop on transitional justice for university students on July 12-14, 2021. The students all served as volunteers on a project to establish an archive of the committee’s work and activism over the past four decades and participated in a previous workshop in February 2020 that introduced them to transitional justice concepts.

While Armenia may rightfully seek acknowledgment from its neighbors of the genocide and other egregious violations, for its part, it must have the courage to reckon with its own recent past in the 30 years since achieving statehood, which includes war crimes, systematic corruption, and large-scale human rights abuses against its own citizens. Failing to do so ultimately threatens the young republic’s democracy.

On February 4, 2021, the prominent activist, intellectual, writer, and filmmaker Lokman Slim joined the long list of victims of violence and impunity in Lebanon. The courageous human rights and political activist was found shot to death in his car in southern Lebanon.

In Venezuela, there is now an absence of representative democracy and a vacuum of public trust in politicians. However, this situation presents an opportunity for other actors and other approaches, so far disparaged by hardliners on both sides. Civil society organizations, which have earned credibility through their dedicated work addressing the humanitarian crisis and defending human rights, can seize this opportunity.

Bogotá, November 20, 2020—ICTJ and the Movement of Latin American Hip Hop Expressions have joined forces to cohost the third International Hip Hop Encounter, which will take place virtually this week from November 25 to November 28. The four-day online event will bring together artists and musicians from across Latin America and Africa along with activists, social leaders, and civil society representatives. The festival’s theme is the role of hip hop music and culture in uncovering truth, preserving memory, and resisting violence and oppression.

In response to the recent tragic explosion in Beirut on August 4, 2020, ICTJ and 14 prominent nongovernmental organizations recently issued a joint statement, demanding immediate action to promote accountability and a new non-sectarian political system in Lebanon. The likely preventable explosion represents another appalling consequence of a dysfunctional sectarian political system that has been in place since the end of the country’s 15-yearlong civil war in 1990 and that has afforded impunity to perpetrators of human rights abuses for decades and entrenched a culture of cronyism and corruption in the country.

The political crisis in Venezuela has reached a breaking point. The upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for December 6 threaten to deprive the opposition of its institutional foothold, on which the legitimacy of its demand to establish an interim government rests. Moreover, observers both inside and outside Venezuela have repeatedly warned that the conditions are unsuitable for fair and impartial elections. A political solution now depends on the government backpedaling from its recent refusal to postpone the elections and allowing the European Union to observe them. It also requires the opposition to take a clear stance beyond calling for the removal of the president.

Beirut, June 23, 2020 — Almost a year and a half after passing Law 105 for the missing and disappeared, the Lebanese government has finally appointed the members of the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared. ICTJ welcomes this action, which is another step closer to uncovering the fate of thousands of victims. However, the appointment of the commissioners will be meaningless, unless the government demonstrates greater commitment to addressing the families’ right to the truth and takes the necessary action to create a commission that is credible and effective.