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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.

Throughout 2023, ICTJ’s experts have offered their unique perspective on breaking news around the globe as part of the World Report. Their insightful commentaries have brought into focus the impact these events have on victims of human right violations as well as larger struggles for peace and justice. In this edition, we look back on the past year through the Expert’s Choice column.

In meeting spaces in Goma, Bukavu, and Bunia, activists and magistrates are discussing ways that they can work together to improve the prosecution of international crimes in the region and address the concerns of local communities.

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.

On August 7, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) found two senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, guilty of crimes against humanity. For many victims who have been waiting for 35 years, the judgment still felt like bittersweet justice.

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.

The United Nations has proclaimed December 10 as International Human Rights Day. The date commemorates the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which represented the reaction of the international community to the horrors of the Second World War. Today is a day for reflection more than celebration. A cursory scan of events from the last few weeks has thrown up examples that demonstrate that the belief in human rights for all - in treating all states the same - is more of a tissue-thin membrane than a robust bulwark.

JAKARTA, Nov. 15, 2011—Experts and stakeholders from Cambodia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Burma, Timor-Leste, Thailand, and Nepal, along with international experts are gathering in Jakarta’s Hotel Atlet from November 15–16 to discuss the need for progress on prosecuting serious crimes in Asia.