Resource Library

ICTJ Vice President Paul Seils writes that the ICC cannot endorse impunity measures any more than others committed to the defense of human rights and the struggle for peace and justice.

A new report from ICTJ provides insights on how women in northern Uganda have been affected by conflict, and gives recommendations on how transitional justice measures can recognize and redress the specific harms suffered by women as a result of the LRA conflict.

Transitional justice practitioners and activists from 18 different countries gathered in Barcelona to attend the 6th Intensive Course on Truth Commissions, organized by the ICTJ and the Barcelona International Peace Resource Center on September 29 - October 3.

In this edition of the ICTJ Program Report, ICTJ Senior Associate Felix Reátegui discusses the principles behind the Truth and Memory program, and explains the imperatives of uncovering, acknowledging, and memorializing the past.

This year, to mark the International Day of the Disappeared, we bring the story of Ziad and Ghassan Halwani, two brothers in Lebanon whose father was kidnapped and disappeared when they were young. Their story is a powerful testament to the long-term impact of disappearances on the life course of those who are still growing up.

The need for a comprehensive reparations process was the central theme of the National War Victims’ Conference held in in May, in Kampala, Uganda.

Three years after the so-called the “Arab Spring,” the post-revolution era has so far been marked by a mix of hope and hardships. At the 8th Al Jazeera Forum, ICTJ President David Tolbert explains what went wrong.

ICTJ participated in the launch of a new report on the relationship between transitional justice and development, launched by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida).

ICTJ President David Tolbert will be a featured speaker at this year’s Al Jazeera Forum in Doha, Qatar. Al Jazeera Forum is the flagship event of Al Jazeera Media Network, at which Al Jazeera showcases its contribution to the world of media and politics.

More than six years after the war in Uganda came to a formal end, the country has taken a landmark first step by unanimously adopting a resolution to establish a reparations fund informed by the experiences of both men and women.

ICTJ is pleased to announce the opening of an innovative site-specific theater performance in Beirut to mark the 39th anniversary of the Lebanese Civil War.

Lebanon has ruled that families of missing and disappeared persons would be allowed access to the investigation files and full report of the Commissions of Inquiry on the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared in Lebanon. In a new episode of our ICTJ Forum, we speak with lawyer Nizar Saghieh about what the ruling means for Lebanese families who continues to search for their missing loved ones.

For decades, Lebanese governments have made only partial and ineffective attempts to hold powerful individuals, groups, and foreign states accountable for violations committed on Lebanese soil, including against civilians. The consequences of their failure to act – for victims and Lebanese society – are grave. ICTJ's new report looks at the culture of impunity for serious violations of human rights continues to thrive in Lebanon.

Join ICTJ and the Center for Global Affairs for a conversation on how the ICC and the African Union can move forward, and what the AU position means for effective prosecutions within Africa and elsewhere.

Guatemalan lawyers for victims in the case against former dictator Efraín Ríos Mont filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to condemn the state of Guatemala for the impunity for crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the Ixil people.

Can truth commissions help secure a just peace following a violent conflict in which massive human rights abuses are committed? In this special series of the ICTJ Forum, we present a series of conversations with some of the world’s top peace mediators and truth commission experts, whose collective experience include years on the front lines of critical peace agreements in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

In this edition of the ICTJ Forum, we speak with Lynn Maalouf, one of the primary authors of a new report by ICTJ entitled Lebanon’s Legacy of Political Violence. The report compiles information on hundreds of incidents of serious crimes that took place from 1975 to 2008 in all parts of Lebanon.

Despite the overwhelming number of Lebanon's civilians killed, injured, displaced or otherwise harmed by decades of violence, there remains a near-total lack of official acknowledgment, reparation, truth about serious crimes or accountability for the perpetrators. ICTJ is pleased to release the first in a series of publications that aim to bring the crimes of the past in Lebanon to light.

Enforced disappearances are among the cruelest of crimes. To the kidnapping, torture, and in many cases, murder of the victim, perpetrators intentionally create fear and uncertainty about the fate of the missing person. Although men are predominantly targeted, the impact on women is severe and lasting.

In the brutality of armed conflict or tyranny of a repressive regime, many who go missing are never found again: whether “disappeared” by agents of the state or abducted by an armed faction, the whereabouts of thousands are still unknown to this day. On this International Day of the Disappeared, ICTJ recognizes that enforced disappearances constitute crimes against humanity, and they affect women in ways unique from the impact on men.

Children and youth are especially vulnerable to the effects of conflict and gross human rights violations. In this edition of the ICTJ Program Report, ICTJ's Children and Youth Program Director Virginie Ladisch talks with us about the importance of integrating child and youth sensitivity into transitional justice mechanisms.

Reparations seek to recognize and address the harms suffered by victims of systematic human rights violations. ICTJ’s Reparative Justice program provides knowledge and comparative experience on reparations to victims' groups, civil society and policymakers worldwide. In this edition of the ICTJ Program Report, we look at ICTJ's work on reparations in dynamic transitional contexts such as Nepal, Colombia, Peru, DRC, and Uganda.

Nine international human rights and legal groups have welcomed the resumption of the Guatemalan trial of Efraín Ríos Montt, the former military dictator, for genocide and crimes against humanity. The trial has taken another step towards its conclusion with the hearing of final arguments from the prosecution and victims’ representatives today and yesterday.

Despite the overwhelming percentage of Lebanese who were affected by recent wars and political unrest, discussion of Lebanon’s past is largely absent from public spheres. A new documentary follows youth in Lebanon as they set out to find the truth.

In this op-ed, ICTJ's Marcie Mersky argues that the significance of the genocide trial for José Efraín Ríos Montt stretches far beyond Guatemala: it is the first time that a former head of state is being tried for genocide in a credible national court, by the national authorities, in the country where the alleged crimes took place.