Resource Library

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.

This study explores specialized units established in 23 countries to investigate and prosecute serious international crimes.

Enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention devastate victims and all those who love them.

This study explores a transitional justice approach to the dilemma of foreign fighters in violent conflict.

The global COVID-19 pandemic forced many countries to impose emergency measures, such as curfews and community lockdowns, to stem the spread of the virus.

This study analyzes how transitional justice in Sierra Leone has contributed to prevention by responding to the grievances of those harmed by violations, reducing exclusion, addressing through ins

This report examines the contribution of transitional justice to prevention in the Philippines, as well as the limits of this contribution due to the failure to comprehensively address and learn f

This study examines the preventive effect of transitional justice in Peru in the aftermath of internal conflict and authoritarianism, focusing on the violence’s root causes and the differentiated

This report examines the preventive impact of transitional justice mechanisms in Colombia before the 2016 peace agreement.

This report summarizes the findings of an ICTJ research project on the contribution of transitional justice to prevention.

This briefing paper examines how transitional justice approaches can guide the discussion around dismantling systemic racism in the United States to focus on root causes of violence and racial inju

Providing justice to victims of human rights abuses in fragile contexts such as the Central African Republic (CAR) is challenging for reasons related not only to the state’s stability, capacity, an

Because transitional justice processes are complex, politically contested, and not necessarily linear, they present unique theoretical and practical challenges for measuring their results.

Lebanon has long been afflicted by a combination of political deadlock and a lack of accountability that has resulted in ongoing human rights violations and overall systemic rot.

Invoking the principle of universal jurisdiction opens the door to the possibility of some accountability in circumstances where justice is not possible in countries where the crimes took place.

Mexico is overwhelmed by criminal violence and human rights violations in ways that ordinary rule of law mechanisms cannot address.

On March 2 and 3, 2020, transitional justice and anti-corruption policymakers, experts, and activists from the Gambia, Kenya, South Africa, Armenia, and Tunisia met in Tunis for a two-day conferen

Colombia's Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP) aims to achieve criminal accountability through a mixed system of restorative and retributive justice.

In most cases, to be imprisoned in Syria is to disappear. Tens of thousands of people, if not more, have been unlawfully taken prisoner or held incommunicado in the context of the Syrian conflict.

Building on its work in Tunisia since 2012, ICTJ met with representatives of youth-led civil society organizations and social movements and state institutions involved in pursuing accountability f

In its primary findings, Kenya's Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission noted that women and girls have been subject to systematic, state-sanctioned discrimination in all spheres of their li

This guide is designed to engage young people who are interested in or are working on transitional justice issues in their communities.

Between April 15 and May 3, 2019, ICTJ held a number of consultations with Kenyan youth from several informal settlements in Nairobi and Mombasa to reflect on their understanding of security secto

In its report, the Kenya Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission concluded that “corruption is endemic in Kenya” and that “there is a direct link between corruption and gross violation of hum

Prosecution guidelines provide benchmarks for decision making and act as a shield for prosecutors in the face of undue influence, pressure, or interference.

This paper explores political exclusion in Kenya and its consequences on the social fabric of the nation.

This report aims to help practitioners in the transitional justice field to understand the experience of establishing and operating hybrid courts and to address some common assumptions about these

This report examines attacks on schools in Syria from multiple angles: from the legal implications of such attacks to the everyday impact on students, teachers, families, and society at large.

By looking at the documentation efforts of Syrian civil society organizations, this paper challenges the notion that criminal prosecution is the sole avenue of justice available for alleged crimes

This briefing paper focuses on the role of victims of human rights violations in criminal proceedings.

Pursuing justice in a transitional context may take the form of multiple measures and goes beyond the pursuit of criminal prosecutions.

In some contexts, the global community has resorted to international tribunals to prosecute the most serious past crimes, such as war crimes, crimes against of humanity, and genocide. While these inte

These are especially challenging times for those of us who work to assist societies in dealing with a legacy of atrocities and massive human rights violations.

The ICTJ continues to support human rights victims in Nepal in their pursuit of justice, truth, reparations, and institutional reform.

When the Syrian people took to the streets in March 2011, nobody could have predicted that the ensuing crisis would become the largest international calamity in recent history.

Discussions about a future return of refugees and coexistence among groups currently at war in Syria must begin now, even in the face of ongoing violence and displacement.

This report presents the main findings of a multiyear research project conducted by the International Center for Transitional Justice on the challenges and opportunities of responding to serious and m

What hope is there for justice for victims of atrocities in profoundly fractured societies, where systems of government have broken down and social and political divisions run deep?

Where should justice for some of the world’s worst crimes be done? In national courts or at the International Criminal Court in The Hague?

This report offers analysis of the current situation regarding the judicial handling of cases related to the post-election violence in Cote d’Ivoire. It looks at existing legal and political challenges within the domestic proceedings and suggests possible solutions.

In this briefing paper ICTJ addresses one of the crucial points of the peace negotiations between the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP): the possibility of providing recourse to the broadest amnesty possible and pardons as part...

This manual was created as part of the Framework Cooperation Agreement between the International Center for Transitional Justice and the Attorney General’s Office, with the aim of providing technical assistance to the National Unit for Analysis and Context (UNAC) and supporting the deve...

This briefing paper details and analyzes the progress made so far in Tunisia to implement its historic Transitional Justice Law, with a particular focus on the Truth and Dignity Commission, created one year ago.

This briefing paper summarizes the findings of an ICTJ report (by the same name) on the judicial response to international crimes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

This report analyzes the response of Congolese judicial authorities to international crimes committed in the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2009 to 2014, with a particular f

The government of Uganda has been slow to address and remedy serious human rights abuses committed against civilians throughout the country, despite its commitment under the Juba peace talks.

This paper weighs the possible modes and competing policy objectives of punishing FARC members for serious crimes in the context of Colombia’s ongoing peace negotiations.

This paper describes proceedings in Uganda’s national courts against Thomas Kwoyelo, a former mid-level commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It analyzes the opportunities and challenges for the prosecution of serious crimes in Uganda and c...

This briefing paper analyzes and reflects on the development of the ICC prosecutor’s strategy and application of procedural rules, since operations began at the International Criminal Court more than a decade ago. The mixed results of the court’s first cases, which arise from the situat...

This briefing paper provides an overview of the proceedings against Thomas Lubanga before the International Criminal Court since the start of the prosecutor’s investigation in 2004 until the 2012 decisions of Trial Chamber I concerning the verdict, the sentence, and reparations. It iden...