Resource Library

2020 was a year of unforeseen hardships throughout the world. We may wish to write off last year as a loss and move forward. However, looking back on it as we do in this 2020 Year in Review, in which we highlight our most read content, we can find and take heart in important victories and apply lessons learned in 2021 and beyond.

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.

This summer, our Intensive Course on Transitional Justice and Peace Processes brought experts from around the world together in Barcelona to examine how transitional mechanisms can be integrated into peace negotiations. Read about the course and watch interviews with our experts.

From October 1 to October 5, 2018, ICTJ hosted its eleventh intensive course on transitional justice in collaboration with the International Peace Center for in Barcelona. Participants included leaders in their respective fields, including human rights law, community justice and legal services, peacebuilding, education, and humanitarian affairs.

Following post-election violence in 2007–2008, Kenya faced a need to hold accountable those most responsible for the fighting that resulted in more than 1,000 deaths and widespread property destruction and displacement. But national judicial mechanisms proved reticent to do so, and in 2010, the situation was adopted by the ICC, who in January of 2012 announced indictments against four suspects.

The political crisis in Venezuela has reached a breaking point. The upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for December 6 threaten to deprive the opposition of its institutional foothold, on which the legitimacy of its demand to establish an interim government rests. Moreover, observers both inside and outside Venezuela have repeatedly warned that the conditions are unsuitable for fair and impartial elections. A political solution now depends on the government backpedaling from its recent refusal to postpone the elections and allowing the European Union to observe them. It also requires the opposition to take a clear stance beyond calling for the removal of the president.

In countries emerging from violent conflict and repression around the world, prosecutors are facing significant challenges and pressures when seeking to investigate and prosecute serious crimes, such as torture, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearance. To reflect on these challenges, ICTJ together with the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, and with support from the governments of Australia and Sweden, convened a side event on December 6, 2019, during the 18th Assembly of State Parties of the International Criminal Court.

The first piece in of our "Transitional Justice and Education" series examines the role of school systems in Bosnia and Northern Ireland.

ICTJ joins the global observations of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and the start of the “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign.” On this day, we recognize the ongoing efforts to protect women from violence in different parts of the world.

More than 20 years after the end of the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, Kosovo is still contending with unresolved ethnic tensions. Formerly an autonomous region of Serbia within the former Yugoslavia, Kosovo declared independence in 2008. Ethnic tensions were a root cause of the violent conflicts, during which an estimated 140,000 died and numerous atrocities were committed. ICTJ recently sat down with ICTJ's Anna Myriam Roccatello and Kelli Muddell to learn more about ICTJ's work and the present challenges to truth and justice in the country.

In this op-ed, ICTJ's President David Tolbert urges President Uhuru Kenyatta and Kenyan institutions to take concrete actions without further delay to provide reparations for victims, tackle the struggling police vetting reform, and prosecute the serious crimes that were committed during the post-election violence.

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 ICTJ looks back on its 15 years of work, join us in celebrating our allies across the globe who struggle for human rights, against impunity. To honor their efforts in the trenches of this struggle, we will bring you their stories in the weeks and months to come. This is the story of Mark Thompson, CEO of Relatives for Justice, a group struggling for truth and justice in Northern Ireland.

A new documentary produced by ICTJ highlights the need to reform Kenya's police force, and stresses the vital role civil society plays in conducting a thorough vetting process and the establishment of public trust in security forces.

Understanding education as a form of both reconstruction and reparations is essential for societies in their efforts to address victims’ rights and help victims and their families overcome the consequences of a painful past.

Join President David Tolbert as we celebrate ICTJ at 15 years, during which there have been many pivotal moments, both for our organization and the struggle for justice globally.

This year marks ICTJ’s 20th anniversary. For the past two decades, the organization has engaged in more than 50 countries, providing technical assistance and other critical support to victims, civil society, governments, and other stakeholders. Since its beginnings, ICTJ has served as a meeting point for transitional justice experts and practitioners and a hub of knowledge, research, and analysis. As a think tank that does, it has been at the forefront of the field’s evolution.

Civil society leaders, members of victims' groups and state officials throughout the Great Lakes region will convene in Kampala, Uganda next week at a conference hosted by ICTJ. Attendees will share their experiences working for redress in their communities and discuss what strategies have proven effective at the local level.

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 ICTJ Program Report is a new online feature that presents ICTJ’s work and impact around the globe. Through monthly in-depth interviews with our experts, the ICTJ Program Report will offer a view of ICTJ’s work on reparations, criminal justice, truth and memory and other transitional justice developments in countries where we work. To launch the series, we speak with Paul Seils, ICTJ's vice president and the head of our Program Office.

Kenya continues to deal with the repercussions of violence stemming from its disputed 2007 presidential elections, when political protests and targeted ethnic violence rocked the country, leaving thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. Head of our Kenya office Chris Gitari gives an update on how Kenya is moving forward, and explains ICTJ's work in the country.

ICTJ and the Center for Global Affairs of New York University (NYU) co-hosted a panel discussion on the impact of international ad hoc tribunals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and the possible lessons these courts’ experiences hold for the International Criminal Court (ICC). In a discussion...

As UN member states convene virtually this week for the annual General Assembly, they will likely focus on a narrow list of agenda items, topped by issues related to the deadly coronavirus pandemic and a global economic downturn. For this reason, ICTJ would like to recall the vital importance of justice for global peace, security, health, and development by sharing findings from an analysis of the open debate on transitional justice that the UN Security Council held on February 13, 2020, as part of its peacebuilding and sustaining peace agenda.

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.