Resource Library

As part of its ongoing efforts to support Syrian civil society organizations seeking to end enforced disappearances in Syria, ICTJ organized a visit to the United States for members of two prominent family associations: Families for Freedom and the Caesar Families Association. The trip, which was planned in coordination with longtime partner Dawlaty, comes at a time when Syrian civil society and victims’ groups have been intensifying their calls for an international mechanism to uncover the fate of those who have gone missing in Syria since the start of the uprising in March 2011.

“No peace without justice” is a chant that filled the streets of the United States last year following the murder George Floyd by police in May 2020. This same chant has animated protest movements and social and political upheaval in many countries around the world. We at ICTJ know from our experience that these calls for justice are for something far more encompassing than criminal accountability alone.

It happened again. George Floyd’s name is now added to the tragic list—already far too long—of other people of color whose lives have been cut short as a direct result of the United States’ long history of racism and white supremacy. We at ICTJ are outraged by the cruel and senseless murder of an unarmed Black man by police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As we try to process this horrific act and grieve the tragic loss of another human life, we must also grapple with the hard truth that it is frankly unsurprising that this list of names continues to grow.

Indigenous peoples are still some of the most marginalized and vulnerable communities around the world. In a conflict, they are often some of the most affected as their resource-rich territories are coveted by powerful and violent groups, their identity and loyalty perceived with mistrust, and their...

ICTJ's Virginie Ladisch spoke with Heythem Guesmi, a young Tunisian activist who is fighting systemic oppression, economic exclusion, and impunity that persist despite the Revolution’s initial success, and Thenjiwe McHarris, a young organizer working with Black Lives Matter in the United States—a movement whose urgency also stems from historic marginalization leading to widespread impunity and systematic failures in law enforcement.

With enforced disappearances on the rise, ICTJ President David Tolbert says the path to prevention is clear: the international community must reorder its priorities and change its approach. The disproportionate attention on counterterrorism takes us further away from accountability and prevention, Tolbert writes. He urges the international community to lead the way in unequivocally censoring governments that use enforced disappearance as a political tactic — and ensuring there can be no impunity for this crime.

Bring General Rios Montt and other high ranking members of the military to trial in the Guatemalan courts for genocide? In 1999 it was a noble dream for justice, but one with little apparent possibility of ever coming true. On International Justice Day, walk the long path to justice that led to this historic trial.

The resignation and indictment of President Otto Pérez Molina for corruption was a significant victory over impunity in Guatemala. In an interview with journalist Carlos Dada, we discussed how recent developments in Guatemala could impact other countries in Central America, such as Honduras and El Salvador.

With the publication of the much-delayed US Senate Intelligence Committee’s partial report on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program, at long last the truth is out. In this op-ed, ICTJ's President David Tolbert asks the United States to acknowledge the truth, hold the perpetrators accountable and address its obligation to the victims of its detention policies.

Guatemalan lawyers for victims in the case against former dictator Efraín Ríos Mont filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to condemn the state of Guatemala for the impunity for crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the Ixil people.

Nine international human rights and legal groups have welcomed the resumption of the Guatemalan trial of Efraín Ríos Montt, the former military dictator, for genocide and crimes against humanity. The trial has taken another step towards its conclusion with the hearing of final arguments from the prosecution and victims’ representatives today and yesterday.

In this new opinion piece, ICTJ President David Tolbert says the United States has publicly lauded the rule of law as it applies to other countries and offered significant financial and political support to torture victims of foreign regimes; yet it has failed to acknowledge or address its obligation to victims of its own detention policies. To regain its credibility in the eyes of the world, the US government must take steps to acknowledge and address past violations and provide redress to victims of US-sanctioned abuses.

In this op-ed, ICTJ's Marcie Mersky argues that the significance of the genocide trial for José Efraín Ríos Montt stretches far beyond Guatemala: it is the first time that a former head of state is being tried for genocide in a credible national court, by the national authorities, in the country where the alleged crimes took place.

On Tuesday, March 19, the genocide trial of General Efraín Ríos Montt began at the High Risk Tribunal in Guatemala. To talk about this historic development in Guatemala’s pursuit of accountability we talk with us one of the key players: Guatemalan Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey

On a historic day for justice in Guatemala and the world, the trial for Guatemala’s former military dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt began this morning in Guatemala City. Ríos Montt and his co-accused, José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez – are standing trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity during the civil war in Guatemala, in which some 200,000 people were killed or disappeared, a majority of them indigenous Maya.

The decision of a judge in Guatemala City to send former military dictator Efraín Ríos Montt to trial on charges of genocide and war crimes is a watershed moment in the country’s complex journey towards a genuine respect for the rule of law. This genocide trial - the first genuine attempt anywhere to prosecute a former head of state in his own country on charges of genocide – has the potential to shatter a significant part of the wall of denial that surrounds Guatemala. For that to happen, the trial must be fair and free of intimidation, argues ICTJ Vice President Paul Seils in this op-ed.

A former U.S.-backed dictator who presided over one of the bloodiest periods of Guatemala's civil war will stand trial on charges he ordered the murder, torture and displacement of thousands of Mayan Indians, a judge ruled Monday. "It's the beginning of a new phase of this struggle," said Paul Seils, vice president of the New York-based International Center for Transitional Justice.

In January 2012, Guatemalan General Ríos Montt was formally charged with genocide for ordering massacres during the genocide in Guatemala. Only a year later, justice for victims has come under threat: Guatemalans and the international community are gravely concerned that the Constitutional Court could be pressured into granting amnesty. On Thursday, December 20, ICTJ joined colleagues and partners in the field to send a strong message to Guatemala: architects of atrocity must be held to account.

In Guatemala, it has taken years of relentless organizing by civil society and cooperation with international partners to begin to prosecute the most responsible, but progress has been made. Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey, currently the prosecutor general and head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, has played an instrumental role in the struggle for accountability. In this recent interview, ICTJ spoke with Ms. Paz about confronting the legacy of the past at the national level within an international system of global criminal justice.

ICTJ partnered with the Center for Global Affairs at New York University to explore how political will of international and national actors impacts national war crimes proceedings. The panel examined four diverse country scenarios - the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Serbia, Iraq, and Guatemala.

When perpetrators of serious international crimes are brought to justice by the country in which they committed their crimes, it signals a strong commitment to accountability and the rule of law. To ensure that domestic investigations and prosecutions occur for serious crimes such as genocide and crimes against humanity, the need for international assistance goes beyond the walls of the courtroom: development agencies and rule of law actors can provide countries with essential support to fairly and effectively prosecute serious international crimes in their own courts.

In the quest to bring perpetrators of massive crimes to justice, international courts should be considered only as a last resort. Efforts to establish rule of law require the development of national capacity to prosecute the most serious crimes. On 25 and 26 October 2012, leading international actors from the judicial, rule of law, and development sectors will convene at the Greentree Estate in Manhasset, New York for the third Greentree Conference on Complementarity. The meeting aims to examine the needs of and challenges to national prosecutions for the most serious crimes in four countries: Ivory Coast, the DRC, Colombia, and Guatemala.

Forced disappearance is a crime against humanity. The decisions made by politicians and officials authorizing such practices in different countries cannot be justified legally or morally. They must be held to account and be shown for what they are: enemies of a civilized society.

As the world marks August 30, the International Day of the Disappeared, we are reminded that forced disappearances and transitional justice share a common history. Indeed, processes working in concert that came to form the field of transitional justice were born from the search for truth and justice about the disappeared.

As we mark July 17, designated International Justice Day by the states parties of the International Criminal Court (ICC) just over two years ago, we should not limit our focus to the work of the court or criminal justice as such. Pursuing justice in the aftermath of atrocity presents an opportunity to do three crucial things: reaffirm a society’s shared values about basic ideas of right and wrong; restore confidence in the institutions of the state charged with protecting fundamental rights and freedoms; and recognize the human dignity of the victims of atrocities that have taken place.