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This report summarizes the findings of an ICTJ research project on the contribution of transitional justice to prevention. Drawing from five country case studies, it contends that addressing the past can help to prevent the recurrence not only of human rights violations but also viole...

A young person with back facing the viewer is wearing a T-shirt that reads “Colombia in Peace"

This year marks ICTJ’s 20th anniversary. For the past two decades, the organization has engaged in more than 50 countries, providing technical assistance and other critical support to victims, civil society, governments, and other stakeholders. Since its beginnings, ICTJ has served as a meeting point for transitional justice experts and practitioners and a hub of knowledge, research, and analysis. As a think tank that does, it has been at the forefront of the field’s evolution.

2020 was a year of unforeseen hardships throughout the world. We may wish to write off last year as a loss and move forward. However, looking back on it as we do in this 2020 Year in Review, in which we highlight our most read content, we can find and take heart in important victories and apply lessons learned in 2021 and beyond.

New York, January 25, 2021—"You cannot deliver 500 kilograms of transitional justice,” explains a high-level UN official in a new ICTJ report released today that explores the theoretical and practical challenges of measuring the results of transitional justice processes. These processes are complex and politically contested and are thus notoriously difficult to evaluate. The report offers key insights related to and tools for evaluating and monitoring transitional justice processes and assessing their impact.

Because transitional justice processes are complex, politically contested, and not necessarily linear, they present unique theoretical and practical challenges for measuring their results. This report seeks to improve monitoring and evaluation practices and support evidence-based proc...

Children, women, and men look at a wall covered in faces of people.

Invoking the principle of universal jurisdiction opens the door to the possibility of some accountability in circumstances where justice is not possible in countries where the crimes took place. This study considers the challenges facing the exercise of universal jurisdiction and asse...

On September 14, the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) publicly apologized to the victims of the kidnappings they perpetrated during the armed conflict. This unprecedented public declaration from a non-state armed group merits reflection from both the perspective of the transitional justice field as a whole and its implications for Colombia.

As UN member states convene virtually this week for the annual General Assembly, they will likely focus on a narrow list of agenda items, topped by issues related to the deadly coronavirus pandemic and a global economic downturn. For this reason, ICTJ would like to recall the vital importance of justice for global peace, security, health, and development by sharing findings from an analysis of the open debate on transitional justice that the UN Security Council held on February 13, 2020, as part of its peacebuilding and sustaining peace agenda.

On August 4th, former President Alvaro Uribe surprised the country with a tweet announcing that he would be placed under house arrest for suspected witness tampering and obstruction of justice by the Special Instruction Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice as part of an investigation that has been underway since 2018. According to the court, this decision was made out of a concern for possible obstruction of justice, which appears to be consistent with the ongoing investigation into these same charges. This is undoubtedly an unprecedented situation.

Colombia's Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP) aims to achieve criminal accountability through a mixed system of restorative and retributive justice. Generally speaking, the SJP envisions large-scale restorative justice measures involving public acknowledgments of responsibility, as ...