Resource Library

Although youth are key political and social stakeholders who have much to contribute to—and gain from—transitional justice processes, they often remain marginalized from such processes or are given only a limited and predetermined space in which to engage. In recent years, the peacebu...

This paper considers the efforts of Timor-Leste’s Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation to address the forced displacement that occurred during the period of Indonesian occupation and in the post-Popular Consultation violence of 1999. It examines linkages between the wor...

The 2006 crisis in Timor-Leste saw close to 15 percent of the population displaced from their homes, threatening to sink the country into protracted instability and violence. Remarkably, five years later the country was back on track, with the internal displacement issue largely reso...

This paper analyzes the Maubuti case in Timor-Leste, the third serious crimes case to be brought to trial after the closure of the UN-supported Serious Crimes Unit in 2005. Maubuti was indicted for crimes against humanity including murder, attempted murder, and rape. The decision and ...

This report examines community expectations and experiences of Timor-Leste’s unique transition from occupation to independence. It documents the results of focus group discussions on an array topcis including violence and conflict, truth recovery, justice, accountability, reconciliat...

This paper considers the UN-sponsored regime established to respond to the crimes committed in East Timor during the Indonesian occupation between 1975 and 1999. The story of the quest for justice in East Timor perhaps can be summed up as one involving good intentions that were not ba...

Indigenous populations throughout the world are widely recognized as groups affected by political and economic marginalization. Countries that have used truth commissions to examine patterns of exclusion—including Chile, Guatemala and Peru—have found clear links between racism, politi...

As the first national truth commission to be created in an established democracy, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is a bold experiment. It is also the first TRC to focus exclusively on crimes committed against children and indigenous groups.

Treatment of historical legacies of discrimination against Aboriginal groups in Canada (First Nations, Inuit, Métis) currently focuses on settlement for abuses committed against Aboriginal children in educational institutions known as “Indian Residential Schools” (IRSs), which pursued...

Timor-Leste has implemented a number of transitional justice mechanisms to address the legacy of human rights violations that occurred in relation to the 1975 Timorese civil war and 24-year Indonesian occupation.These mechanisms have failed to provide victims with meaningful reparatio...

Providing the Minister for Social Solidarity with the unfettered discretion to dismiss and appoint members of the institute’s Governing Board renders the institute vulnerable to politicization and undermines the institute’s ‘technical, administrative and financial autonomy.

The framework of transitional justice, originally devised to facilitate reconciliation in countries undergoing transitions from authoritarianism to democracy, is increasingly used to respond to certain types of human rights violations against indigenous peoples -- even in cases where ...