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In 2021, there were significant developments, some hopeful and some devastating, in the struggle for truth, accountability, and redress in countries around the world. ICTJ experts covered these events in commentaries and feature stories published on our website and in our newsletters. While 2022 is already underway and we at ICTJ are hard at work, we would like to pause a moment to take stock and reflect on the year that was.

A new ICTJ report argues that in Africa's interconnected Great Lakes region, each country’s attempt to provide justice for past violations offers lessons for similar processes in others. We gathered civil society activists from across the region to discuss which strategies have worked for them, which have not, and opened up about the greatest challenges they face in securing justice.

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.

It only takes a quick skim of the daily news to see how the world has yet again failed Afghan civilians. Afghanistan has not had many good years in the past four decades of war, but the past 15 months have been decidedly fraught. The current chaos and spiking violence are proof that, despite what the US government has proclaimed, the “forever war” rages on. Peace and meaningful, victim-centered justice remain elusive.

UN operations are due to end in Côte d’Ivoire next June, but the country must pursue a victim-centered approach to justice even after UNOCI leaves. An ICTJ-organized conference works to prepare government, civil society, and the diplomatic community for the UN departure and chart a way towards justice and a stable peace for all of Côte d’Ivoire.

Amid deteriorating human rights conditions in the country, the lower house of Burundi’s National Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of withdrawing from the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the International Criminal Court. “Burundi should reconsider this ill-conceived decision, which undermines efforts at the national level to bring justice, peace, and stability to the country,” said ICTJ President David Tolbert.

Though not a state party to the Rome Statute, Cote d’Ivoire accepted the jurisdiction of the ICC through an ad hoc declaration in April 2003, and in December of 2010—in the wake of the post-election crisis—reaffirmed that declaration. It has been more than one year since Cote d’Ivoire began a critical transition from a decade-long civil war that divided the country and led to widespread human rights violations, forced displacement, and loss of civilian lives and property.

On January 15, 2019, victims of the 2010-2011 post-election violence in Côte d'Ivoire were shocked, yet again, to learn that the Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court in The Hague had acquitted former President Laurent Gbagbo and the former Youth Minister Charles Blé Goudé of crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the crisis.

In this op-ed, ICTJ President David Tolbert argues that President Alassane Ouattara should use his second term as president to address widespread atrocities committed in Cote d'Ivoire's recent past.

Join ICTJ and the Center for Global Affairs for a conversation on how the ICC and the African Union can move forward, and what the AU position means for effective prosecutions within Africa and elsewhere.