Resource Library

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.

In the Netherlands, a court sentenced an arms dealer to 19 years in prison for his role in war crimes in Liberia. What does his case tell us about pursuing justice for economic crimes in Liberia and beyond?

South Africa Parliament faces a historic moment. In this op-ed, ICTJ's Vice President Paul Seils remembers the great hope that marked the ICC’s emergence: "No country embodied that hope and that reality more powerfully and more inspiringly than South Africa."

The Africa Union's resolution to collectively support a strategy to withdraw from the ICC looks more like a machination of those who have instrumentalized an argument against the court to protect themselves from the long arm of justice, write ICTJ's top experts on Africa.

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.

The significance of Charles Taylor’s judgment rendered few days ago in The Hague goes far beyond Taylor himself, or even the Special Court for Sierra Leone. This decision will be an unavoidable legal precedent in any future deliberation of the role played by leaders and states in crimes committed by forces they support in other countries, writes ICTJ's president David Tolbert in this op-ed.

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 a major effort to promote accountability for serious crimes in Africa, ICTJ joined hundreds of human rights groups and transitional justice partners to ask the African Union to prioritize justice. Addressed to the new African Union (AU) Chairperson Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the letter warns that strained relationships between the AU and the International Criminal Court (ICC) may put justice at risk.

As the work of the Special Court for Sierra Leone draws to a close, we take stock of the historic milestones it has passed since its creation in advancing transitional justice through a special multimedia project, “ Exploring the Legacy of the Special Court for Sierra Leone .” This website will support two conferences: one in New York on November 7-8, 2012, and one in Freetown on January 9-10, 2013. The website will be regularly updated to provide information on the history of the court and its legacy through interactive multimedia and other features.

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.