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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.

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.

The political crisis in Venezuela has reached a breaking point. The upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for December 6 threaten to deprive the opposition of its institutional foothold, on which the legitimacy of its demand to establish an interim government rests. Moreover, observers both inside and outside Venezuela have repeatedly warned that the conditions are unsuitable for fair and impartial elections. A political solution now depends on the government backpedaling from its recent refusal to postpone the elections and allowing the European Union to observe them. It also requires the opposition to take a clear stance beyond calling for the removal of the president.

Since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in August 2021, the regime has put in place a series of policies severely restricting independent media and giving it all but total control over news outlets and their content. Kobra Moradi is a lawyer and researcher working with Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization and author of the recent report, Afghan Media Under the Taliban: Restrictions and Violations. ICTJ sat down with the author to learn more about what impact these restrictions have had on journalists and the free press, and the important role media can still play in such a repressive regime.

Civil society leaders, members of victims' groups and state officials throughout the Great Lakes region will convene in Kampala, Uganda next week at a conference hosted by ICTJ. Attendees will share their experiences working for redress in their communities and discuss what strategies have proven effective at the local level.

ICTJ’s partner Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization (AHRDO) recently opened a new virtual museum and database dedicated to Afghan victims of conflict and human rights abuses. “The Afghanistan Memory House” not only preserves the memory of these victims but helps pave the path for truth and justice. To launch the virtual museum, ICTJ and AHRDO cohosted a panel discussion on memorialization, moderated BBC journalist Lyse Doucet, in ICTJ’s office in New York this past December.

The one-day forum “Latin American Experiences with Truth Commissions,” organized by the International Center for Transitional Justice in Bogotá on July 22, brought together leading experts to discuss experiences and lessons learned from truth-seeking processes that shed light on massive human rights violations in four countries: Argentina, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Peru.

In Venezuela, there is now an absence of representative democracy and a vacuum of public trust in politicians. However, this situation presents an opportunity for other actors and other approaches, so far disparaged by hardliners on both sides. Civil society organizations, which have earned credibility through their dedicated work addressing the humanitarian crisis and defending human rights, can seize this opportunity.

South African authorities apparently believe that once the country has officially withdrawn from the ICC, it will be free to invite the likes of Sudanese President al-Bashir to the country. That's not so, writes ICTJ's Howard Varney, who explains why the country's obligations would continue beyond its departure from the court.