Resource Library

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.

This is the second of our Stories of Change series; in it, Tarek al-Massri, an 18-year-old from Homs now living in Germany, knows all too well the horrors of the Syrian conflict and its devastating impact on schools.

For many victims of human rights violations and international crimes around the world, the prospects of holding perpetrators to account, especially high-level individuals, have long seemed farfetched, given current political and legal hurdles and the limitations of international criminal justice mechanisms. For this reason, the multiple ongoing investigations into international crimes committed in Syria and court cases against suspected perpetrators based on the principle of universal jurisdiction across Europe have offered a ray of hope in an otherwise bleak justice landscape.

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.

This opinion piece by Eduardo González, director of the Truth and Memory program at ICTJ, asks: can you build a solid, legitimate democracy on the sands of silence, or does truth provide a more trustful foundation?

ICTJ welcomes the 6th National Event of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, part of the TRC’s journey towards completion of its mandate: to learn the truth about what happened in the residential schools, and to inform all Canadians about this history.

“Residential schools affected everything about how we live. They targeted and destroyed our strong family unit, the basic foundation of our communities. They destroyed the glue that holds us together—love, respect and sharing.” These words, spoken by Charlie Furlong, a community leader of the Gwich'in people of Canada’s Northwest Territories, sum up the chilling legacy of the country’s policy of forced assimilation of indigenous cultures implemented through a system of Indian Residential Schools (IRS) from the 1870s to 1998.

From March 27 to 30, some 20,000 Canadians gathered in Edmonton, Alberta, for the final national event of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). Established in 2008, the TRC is now entering a new stage: the writing of its final report based on the more than 6,500 statements it has gathered.

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released its interim report and a new historical publication titled They Came for the Children in Vancouver today. The TRC was established in 2008 to examine and make public the truth about Canada’s former Indian Residential Schools, a system designed to forcibly assimilate aboriginal children. From 1874 to 1996 more than 150,000 children were taken from their families and placed in church-run schools. They were prohibited from speaking their native languages and practicing cultural traditions, and physical, sexual, and emotional violence was commonplace.

Elementary and high school teachers and students in the Montréal area gathered today for “Education Day,” an event convened by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) to kick off the TRC’s historic Québec National Event, scheduled from April 24 to 27, 2013.