Resource Library

ICTJ is launching a new multimedia page featuring projects that highlight the human perspective of issues in transitional justice and seek to engage a wide variety of audiences in a discussion on accountability for massive human rights abuses. Here's why we think multimedia can play a key role in deepening public understanding of transitional justice, and convey the guiding principles of ICTJ.

The one-day forum “Latin American Experiences with Truth Commissions,” organized by the International Center for Transitional Justice in Bogotá on July 22, brought together leading experts to discuss experiences and lessons learned from truth-seeking processes that shed light on massive human rights violations in four countries: Argentina, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Peru.

Reparations seek to recognize and address the harms suffered by victims of systematic human rights violations. ICTJ’s Reparative Justice program provides knowledge and comparative experience on reparations to victims' groups, civil society and policymakers worldwide. In this edition of the ICTJ Program Report, we look at ICTJ's work on reparations in dynamic transitional contexts such as Nepal, Colombia, Peru, DRC, and Uganda.

In an unprecedented act of unity, youth activists from across Bosnia and Herzegovina united to visit sites of former detention camps and pay respect to victims from all ethnic groups and sides of the conflict. Some 50 activists of the initiative “Because It Matters” from Prijedor, Banja Luka, Mostar, Tuzla, Sarajevo, Ljubuski, Gradiska, Konjic and other cities visited locations in Hadzici, Celebici, Jablanica, and Dretelj, where crimes were committed against civilians of Bosniak, Serb, and Croat ethnicities.

In our work providing assistance to societies around the world, we draw continual inspiration from individuals and communities who refuse to ignore the abuses of the past, and who often face great obstacles to expose it. To honor their courage, we invite you to read a selection of perspectives on truth and dignity from those who have used their words to convey a powerful idea: truth is the foundation of justice.

This year, ICTJ's campaign for the International Day for the Right to the Truth centers around the theme, “Truth is the Foundation of Justice.” This notion, fundamental to the idea of a comprehensive approach to justice, is explored through several new releases from ICTJ.

The United Nations has proclaimed December 10 as International Human Rights Day. The date commemorates the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which represented the reaction of the international community to the horrors of the Second World War. Today is a day for reflection more than celebration. A cursory scan of events from the last few weeks has thrown up examples that demonstrate that the belief in human rights for all - in treating all states the same - is more of a tissue-thin membrane than a robust bulwark.

The latest ICTJ Program Report presents ICTJ’s work in Africa. In a deeply insightful interview, Suliman Baldo, director of ICTJ’s Africa program and one of the world’s leading experts on transitional justice in Africa, discusses transitional justice processes in Ivory Coast, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda.

The Fourth Intensive Course on Truth Commissions, presented by ICTJ in partnership with the Barcelona International Peace Resource Center (BIPRC), focuses this year on the challenge of recognizing the experiences of vulnerable populations in the work of truth commissions. Practitioners and academics representing 17 countries will participate in the week-long course, including members of the Brazilian and Ivorian Truth Commissions, the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare TRC Process, and ICTJ experts from around the world.

On August 30, 2012, ICTJ joined government officials and civil society in Freetown to celebrate the launch of a new website for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone and welcome the prospects for revitalization of Sierra Leone’s reconciliation.