Resource Library

From February 27-March 1, leading indigenous rights activists from around the world will join their counterparts and other experts at Columbia University to discuss access to truth, justice, and reconciliation for indigenous peoples.

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.

In seeking to establish accountability for past atrocity, many transitional justice mandates have also sought to redress crimes against indigenous populations. To further explore this relationship, ICTJ and our partners in Canada and Colombia are holding two side events to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) will hold its second of seven national events from June 28 to July 1 in Inuvik, Northwest Territories. The event will provide survivors of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools (IRS) and other participants an opportunity to contribute to documenting and publicizing what took place in this program of forced assimilation.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada held its fourth national event in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan June 21. After attending a prior hearing, students from the We'koqma'q Mi'kmaw School in Nova Scotia created “Our Legacy Our Hope,” a documentary bearing witness to the intergenerational effects of Residential Schools and the ongoing work of the commission to address these legacies.

Angkar, screened on June 16 at the New York Human Rights Watch Film Festival, follows Khonsaly, a victim of the Khmer Rouge, on his journey to the village he fled almost 30 years ago. The film, produced by Neary Adeline Hay about her father's experience with torture and repression, is an intergenerational offering to truth and memorialization work that dances between the inheritance of abuse and its painful recollection by a survivor.

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. Virginie Ladisch and Clara Ramirez-Barat recall how one Canadian student, in exploring the legacy of the country's Residential Schools, arrived at the concept of "never again."

In societies confronting the legacies of war, tyranny, or entrenched injustice, the experiences of indigenous people have often been marginalized. ICTJ has published a handbook offering guidance on planning truth commissions and commissions of inquiry that safeguard the interests of indigenous communities and address violations against them.

ICTJ's expert conference on the relationship between truth-seeking and indigenous rights is in session. View the live stream here.