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“Vetoes and excuses get in the way of what is right and just.” With those words, Amina Khoulani, Cofounder of Families for Freedom, spelled out the failings of the United Nations Security Council, as she described in lurid detail the harsh realities facing families of the disappeared in Syria. Actors with the power to stop the killing of detainees and to free those still imprisoned are forsaking their responsibilities.

As grassroots efforts to confront the legacy of racial injustice in the United States take hold from New Orleans to Maine and beyond, how can transitional justice experiences around the world inform their work? That was a major focus of a recent conference ICTJ co-convened, hosted by Kean University.

In the latest ICTJ podcast, Heidy Rombouts, Kenya project leader with the German development agency GIZ, discusses how understanding the links between development, security, and transitional justice will help inform and strengthen policies for implementing complementarity on the ground. [Download](/sites/default/files/Rombouts_ICTJ_Podcast_03052012.mp3) | Duration: 11:42mins | File size: 6.69MB

In the wake of the agreement between Colombia and FARC to form a truth commission, ICTJ's Fernando Travesí and Félix Reátegui discuss the role such a body should be expected to fulfill.

A newly adopted UN Security Council resolution calls on the Syrian government to cooperate in destroying its chemical weapons arsenal, stressing that “those responsible for any use of chemical weapons must be held accountable.” Yet, it does not provide a framework for pursuing accountability, in the short or long term. What role might transitional justice play in a post-conflict Syria? Should Syria rush to prosecute war criminals once the fighting draws to a close? These are some of the pressing questions explored in ICTJ’s newest briefing paper.

The African Union, the Kofi Annan Foundation and ICTJ opened a high-level conference examining the role of truth commissions in peace processes. The two-day conference, titled “Truth Commissions and Peace Processes in Africa,” has gathered senior staff from the African Union and member states as well as international and national experts to reflect on lessons learned from truth commissions that have emerged from peace processes in Africa and other continents.

Sexual violence against men and boys is alarmingly common amidst conflict or repression, but these crimes are often mishandled. A new ICTJ report examines how transitional justice efforts in South Africa, Kenya, Cambodia, and beyond have responded to the needs of male victims of sexual violence. What lessons can be drawn from these approaches?

On October 7, the world watched in horror as members of the militant group Hamas slaughtered over 1,400 Israelis, most of whom were civilians including children and the elderly, in a premeditated and sophisticated attack. Israel’s response has so far been no less horrific. Incessant waves of indiscriminate airstrikes on Gaza have hit residential buildings, medical facilities, and other critical civilian infrastructure, besieging the entire enclave and leaving more than 5,000 people dead including 2,000 children. Unfortunately, these unspeakable atrocities—the condemnation and rejection for which we have run out of words—are not isolated events happening in a vacuum. They are, in fact, just the latest episodes in a 75-yearlong cycle of violence.

A short biography of Hebert Veloza Garcia aka "H.H."

In the wake of the mass demonstrations in the United States, activists in European cities similarly took the streets to protest against racism and police violence. In Belgium, mostly young activists have defaced statues of King Leopold II with red paint, insisting public spaces be "decolonized" that commemorate the monarch who personally owned the Congo for more than two decades before relinquishing it to the Belgian government which then controlled it for half a century. Are Belgian and other societies in Europe ready to reckon with the truth of their colonial legacies?