25 results

Gearing Up the Fight Against Impunity: Dedicated Investigative and Prosecutorial Capacities

This study explores specialized units established in 23 countries to investigate and prosecute serious international crimes. Notwithstanding the challenges faced by these units, the study concludes that countries with a specialized institutional approach are considerably more successf...

several judges dressed in black gowns sit on a judicial bench.
Report

Making an Impact: Guidelines on Designing and Implementing Outreach Programs for Transitional Justice

by

ICTJ; Clara Ramírez-Barat

Report

Civil Society-Led Truth-Seeking Initiatives: Expanding Opportunities for Acknowledgment and Redress

At a time when truth-seeking and reparations initiatives are taking hold across the United States, this report offers reflections from various civil society-led truth-seeking processes. Drawing on case studies from the United States, Colombia, Scotland, and West Papua, the report iden...

People gather around a plaque marking the Greenboro Massacre outside during an inaugural ceremony
Report

Victims’ Hope for Justice Postponed in the Central African Republic

After seven years of waiting for the UN-backed Special Criminal Court (SCC) in the Central African Republic to begin operations, victims of the country’s civil war had hoped to finally see the first tangible step toward justice on April 25 when the first trial opened in the capital Bangui. The trial was initially set to begin on April 19, 2022, but was abruptly postponed when the defense attorneys failed to show up in an apparent boycott over their wages. When the defense lawyers returned to court on April 25, they immediately requested an adjournment, which was granted, and the trial was postponed again until May 16. It is very likely that this incessant postponement will further deflate already diminished confidence among victims in the SCC’s ability to deliver justice.

05/02/22
World Report

In Colombia, Precedent Is Set for Acknowledging Past Atrocities

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...

05/17/22
A man stands at a podium with a microphone, holding up a small white flower.
In Focus

Setting an Agenda for Sustainable Peace: Transitional Justice and Prevention in Colombia

This report examines the preventive impact of transitional justice mechanisms in Colombia before the 2016 peace agreement. It finds that these measures have contributed to prevention by strengthening institutional responses to rights violations, shaping the public agenda, developing a...

by

María Cielo Linares

Report

Achieving a Delicate Balance: Victim Participation in International and Domestic Criminal Proceedings

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...

08/11/22

by

Elena Naughton

A man and woman embrace, touching foreheads.
In Focus

The Road to Acknowledgment in Colombia

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.

08/24/22
Four people embrace each other.
In Focus

Truth, Reconciliation, and Redress for Racial Injustice in the United States: Insights from Experiences of Commissions Around the World

The United States has never collectively confronted its history of colonialism, slavery, and racism in an effort to reform the systems that perpetuate harms to Black communities and other marginalized groups, or to redress these wrongs. Events in recent years, however, have amplified ...

Two sets of hands plant a white flower in the ground.
Report

New Report Offers Lessons from Truth Commissions Around the World to Confront Racial Injustice in the United States

The United States has never collectively confronted its history of colonialism, slavery, and racism in an effort to reform the systems that perpetuate harms to Black communities and other marginalized groups, or to redress these wrongs. Events in recent years, however, have amplified calls for meaningful action to reckon with the past. Given that truth seeking is integral to the investigation of past wrongs, ICTJ and a coalition of practitioners from multiple law firms has released a new report that examines the experiences of official truth commissions from around the world to identify relevant considerations for US stakeholders.

12/14/22
Two sets of hands plant a white flower in the ground.
Press Releases