Resource Library

Dr. Alex Boraine, founder of the ICTJ, was larger than life. In his long career, he touched the lives of thousands in his beloved South Africa and around the world.

On Friday, October 19, ICTJ welcomed the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), Ms. Cecilia Jimenez-Damary, at its headquarters in New York, where she gave an informal presentation. Jimenez-Damary’s eye-opening report on the human rights of IDPs takes up the crucial importance of including the voices and concerns of IDPs in transitional justice mechanisms.

During a forum held in Bogotá, Colombia, on November 1, 2018, ICTJ launched the Spanish-language version of its Handbook on Complementarity: An Introduction to the Role of National Courts and the ICC in Prosecuting International Crimes . The Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), James Kirkpatrick Stewart, gave the keynote address.

Recent recognition of the work of Nobel Laureate Nadia Murad has drawn global attention to the issue of sexual violence and gender-based violence in conflict. But, as ICTJ Expert Kelli Muddell argues, the nuances of gender norms and how they impact women, men, and vulnerable populations are still often missing from conversations about victims.

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.

In the dynamic political landscape that has emerged following 50 years of conflict, Colombia is taking steps toward truth and accountability. The Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence, and Non-Repetition (the “Commission”) is scheduled to begin taking statements in November 2018. As part of its mandate, it will hear the stories of victims now living throughout the Diaspora.

The announcement by the Executive Committee of Ethiopia’s ruling party that the country will implement the 2002 Algiers peace agreement and decisions of the Ethiopia-Eritrea Boundary Commission brings hope that a 20-year war that divided families and communities is finally over.

To mark the launch of our new publication, "Forms of Justice: A Guide to Designing Reparations Application Forms and Registration Processes for Victims of Human Rights Violations", we sat down with Jairo Rivas about his work in designing reparations forms in Peru and Colombia.

Anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Timol died in South African police custody in 1971, and his family continues to demand justice. While police claimed Timol died by suicide, evidence indicated that he was tortured and murdered. The family’s tenacious efforts led to the reopening of an inquest into Timol's death this year, with ICTJ senior program advisor Howard Varney representing the family. Last month the Pretoria High Court ruled in the family’s favor, finding that Timol did not kill himself but was indeed murdered while in police custody. ICTJ’s Sam McCann sat down with Varney to discuss the ruling, what it means to Timol’s family, and its significance for the fight for justice in South Africa.

From Syria to Colombia and beyond, how do societies navigate the pursuit of justice in peace processes? That question animated ICTJ’s annual Intensive Course on Transitional Justice and Peace Processes, which this month gathered 31 participants from nearly 20 countries in Barcelona to discuss the place of justice in negotiations to end conflict. Go behind-the-scenes with our instructors and participants.

ICTJ and its partners will hosted a national dialogue in Kampala, Uganda on the aftermath of sexual violence. The aim: to shift stigma from victims to perpetrators and end the culture of silence. Sarah Kihika Kasande, head of ICTJ's Uganda office, explains why such efforts are essential to ending impunity and securing a lasting peace in the country.

With enforced disappearances on the rise, ICTJ President David Tolbert says the path to prevention is clear: the international community must reorder its priorities and change its approach. The disproportionate attention on counterterrorism takes us further away from accountability and prevention, Tolbert writes. He urges the international community to lead the way in unequivocally censoring governments that use enforced disappearance as a political tactic — and ensuring there can be no impunity for this crime.

Kenya is just days away from the 2017 general election, but challenges dot the horizon, including the recent assassination of an election official. ICTJ's Chris Gitari calls for a strong, accountable security sector and the implementation of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission Report.

Is reconciliation a central aim of transitional justice processes? Or does it have different bearings in different settings? A new paper presents possible understandings of the concept of reconciliation as well as its relationship to the field of transitional justice.

ICTJ is pleased to announce an intensive course on transitional justice and peace processes to be held in Barcelona, Spain on October 9-13. Applications are now open.

Children born of wartime sexual violence often face rejection from the communities their mothers call home. For these families, the failure of the state to address the harm they suffered and the enduring stigma leads to their further marginalization. An ICTJ film on this stigma, and the paths to overcome it, sparked discussion at a panel held at the Austrian Mission to the United Nations.

In 1986, Wachira Waheire was whisked off the street, taken to Kenya's most infamous torture chamber, and sentenced to four years in prison. Over the next 30 years, his quest for justice led him to meetings with his torturers to courtroom showdowns with the country's Attorney General. Discover his ongoing struggle for truth, acknowledgement, and reparations alongside all survivors of abuse in Kenya.

In the Netherlands, a court sentenced an arms dealer to 19 years in prison for his role in war crimes in Liberia. What does his case tell us about pursuing justice for economic crimes in Liberia and beyond?

In Africa's Great Lakes region, countries face common challenges like bad governance, inequitable distribution of natural resources, and ethnic divisions. As nations like Burundi, Central African Republic and South Sudan work towards peacebuilding and accountability, they should learn from what has worked and what has not in neighboring countries, writes Sarah Kihika Kasande, ICTJ's Head of Office in Uganda.

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.

The taboo around sexual violence against men and boys can leave victims in the shadows, write ICTJ's Kelli Muddell and Sibley Hawkins. Without acknowledgment of these crimes, efforts to address injustices of the past will be hard-pressed to develop inclusive and effective responses.

The right to the truth carries special resonance in Kenya, and so on March 24th Kenyan state agencies, survivors, civil society organizations, and international partners will join together in Nairobi to observe the International Day for the Right to the Truth. It provides an opportunity not just for remembrance, but also for greater dialogue between the government and victims about the implementation of reparations programs and of the findings presented in the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission's final report.

To mark 15 years of ICTJ, we asked staff past and present for memories that stand out to them - moments that throw the stakes of our work into sharp relief and resonate with them years later. Olivier Kambala wa Kambala, an ICTJ Program Associate from 2005 to 2010, talks about the thirst for justice he saw on a visit to Guinea, and how the political situation rendered quenching it impossible.

South Africa Parliament faces a historic moment. In this op-ed, ICTJ's Vice President Paul Seils remembers the great hope that marked the ICC’s emergence: "No country embodied that hope and that reality more powerfully and more inspiringly than South Africa."

The Africa Union's resolution to collectively support a strategy to withdraw from the ICC looks more like a machination of those who have instrumentalized an argument against the court to protect themselves from the long arm of justice, write ICTJ's top experts on Africa.