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Throughout 2022, ICTJ’s experts weighed in on breaking news in more than 10 countries, offering incisive analyses of the political dynamics behind the coverage and the implications for justice, peace, and the rights of victims. In this December edition of the World Report, we look back at the year that was through our Expert’s Choice commentaries, bringing you all of our team’s valuable insights together in one place.

Nearly two years after the conflict erupted in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region in the north, the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front signed an African Union-brokered cessation of hostilities agreement on November 2, followed by an implementation deal 10 days later. The breakthrough agreement offers a glimmer of hope after a brutal war. It charts a path toward peace and lays the foundations for addressing the legacy of the serious human rights violations and preventing their recurrence by providing for the implementation of a transitional justice policy centered on accountability, truth seeking, redress for victims, and reconciliation and healing.

On October 31, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Sochi to discuss steps to normalize relations between Yerevan and Baku and a longer-term peace deal that would finally end the decades-long, on-and-off conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. This willingness on both sides to come to the negotiating table is without question welcome news. However, the two parties seem to want to talk about peace on different terms and without addressing core human rights issues in their respective countries in connection with the conflict.

Eight years into a brutal war, the people of Yemen are still suffering through the worst humanitarian crisis on earth. The war has resulted in over 370,000 deaths, more than half of which are linked to indirect causes such as hunger and preventable diseases. Around 4 million people have been...

The recent move by the signatories to the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) to extend the peace agreement’s life for another 24 months has not come as a surprise. While there have been some positive, though sporadic steps toward fulfilling the R-ARCSS, its...

Reparations for victims of sexual and gender-based violations (SGBV) raise a series of complicated questions and implementation challenges around how to acknowledge this category of victims and deliver reparations without exposing victims to stigma and rejection. Victims must weigh the risk of...

Since Russian armed forces invaded Ukraine in late February 2022, the horrific nature of violence endured by Ukrainian civilians at the hands of Russian soldiers has shocked the world. At the time of this writing, there have been 16,000 reports of alleged war crimes, including forcible transfer...

Thirty-six years after Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos were overthrown in a “People Power” revolution, the Marcos family is back in power, with Ferdinand Marcos Jr. elected as president (and Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter as his vice-president). While immediate as well as decades-late transitional justice...

On February 6, 2022, President Kaies Saied announced that he would dissolve Tunisia’s Supreme Judicial Council. While his supporters welcomed the declaration with satisfaction, many more across broad segments of society greeted it with outrage and resentment. That the president made this unilateral announcement on the premises of the Ministry of Interior—responsible for public security—stung all the more, as if to send a message that he would not hesitate to use executive power to counter perceived disobedience, judicial or otherwise.

On November 25, 2021, The Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) presented its 17-volume final report and recommendations to President Adama Barrow, after multiple delays. The final report includes a record of serious human rights violations committed under Jammeh’s repressive regime and recommendations for pursuing justice. Despite the challenges, steps have already been taken that offer hope that the TRRC’s recommendations will take effect.