Resource Library

This policy brief presents recommendations for transitional vetting based on insights from research on vetting practice. It is meant to complement existing guidelines on vetting put forth by the United Nations and other international organizations. It defines vetting and the risks it ...

Refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) have often been directly affected by the crimes truth commissions seek to expose, and have a major stake in the success of transitional justice processes, which can shape the stability of post-conflict communities as well as the prospec...

This paper explores the intersection between displacement and one particular mechanism of transitional justice—justice-sensitive security sector reform (JSSR). It aims to identify various ways in which JSSR can contribute to the protection of refugees and internally displaced persons ...

Transitional justice has for the most part not prioritized issues related to displaced persons. Transitional justice measures do, however, have a bearing on displaced persons’ interests and on efforts to resolve displacement, in particular with regard to durable solutions, which inclu...

While contemporary understandings of restitution have been shaped by international responses to displacement and are primarily humanitarian in nature, restitution has its conceptual roots in traditional rules governing remedies for breaches of international law and is related to trans...

Humanitarians, development agencies, human rights organizations, and peacebuilding actors are commonly drawn to the same flash points of conflict, human rights violations, and states in need of rebuilding. Operating in common country contexts leads to increased interactions between th...

Although transitional justice processes are intended to help heal and restore society after conflict or authoritarian rule, marginalized groups often struggle to make their voices heard. These groups include those who have been displaced by conflict and, within that category, those wh...

This paper examines the crime of forced displacement from the perspective of both international and national legal frameworks. The crime of forced displacement is a notion that comes from international law. Indeed, an international legal framework has developed with the instruments an...

Recent years have seen an increased recognition of the need to address the housing, land, and property (HLP) rights of displaced populations in post-conflict situations; however, the implementation of restitution programs is challenged by the fact that in most countries affected by in...

The protracted displacement of Palestinian refugees presents a complex set of challenges for the international refugee, humanitarian, and transitional justice fields. For the most part, these global movements have treated the Palestinian situation as a case apart: Palestinian refugee...

Displacement was a major tactic used by armed groups during the brutal conflict in Liberia from 1989 to 2003. It is estimated that during this time, half the country’s population experienced displacement as a result of warfare. The large numbers of people forced from their homes mean...

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...

An internal armed conflict involving the government, leftist guerrillas, and a variety of paramilitary groups and criminal bands has endured in Colombia for the last 60 years, generating massive levels of displacement. A comprehensive truth commission that investigates major human ri...

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...

In cases other than those of environmental disasters, some mix of persecution and fear of violence based on ethnicity, race, or religion, plus violations of human rights and repression based on political beliefs and opinions often characterizes forced displacement for both internally ...

This paper examines the relationship between forced displacement and transitional justice in Colombia from a gender perspective. The text focuses on three main themes: first, the gendered impacts of forced displacement; second, the ways that official policy, as it has evolved from pr...

Although the conflict in Turkey remains ongoing and a political solution to the “Kurdish question” has not been reached, in recent years, the Turkish government has developed a series of laws and policies regarding the situation of displaced Kurds. The most significant of these polic...

This paper is concerned with the relationship between criminal justice and displacement that has taken place as a result of serious violations of international humanitarian law, and considers these issues within the context of justice efforts in the former Yugoslavia. It argues that ...

Displacement is one of the most widespread and tangible consequences of conflict, and has been chronically high in Africa’s Great Lakes region by any standard. This paper focuses on three salient gender-specific dynamics of conflict and displacement in the region that need to be inco...

As with most post-conflict challenges, the issues of displaced populations and weak security institutions each have profound effects on the other. A common cause of displacement in post-conflict environments is a lack of physical security, either because formal security institutions ...

The reparations policy for victims of Peru’s internal armed conflict, which lasted from 1980 to 2000, includes the internally displaced population among its beneficiaries under the Official Register of Victims. However, displaced persons are given lower priority than the other catego...

The crime of forced displacement has been a widespread practice in Colombia’s internal armed conflict for several decades. However, forced displacement cannot be reduced to an inherent or unintended effect of the conflict. The armed actors in the Colombian armed conflict—the army an...

Research Brief: Selected examples of Defence, Intelligence and Justice Investigative Reports into detention and interrogation practices.

Examples of pardons in international jurisprudence, including Inter-American Court and Commission, European Court of Human Rights, UN Treaty Bodies, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Case studies on the use of pardons in Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Peru, and South Africa.

In April, the World Bank released its 2011 World Development Report (WDR) entitled Conflict, Security, and Development. It is the first WDR that links transitional justice to security and development and places human rights violations at the heart of its analysis of conflict. ICTJ has...

Demobilization was first initiated in Cambodia in 1992, but there have been few attempts to link disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) processes to transitional justice measures. The government's overriding consideration has been the preservation of stability, narrowly i...

Background on the challenges in addressing legacies of past violence in sub-Saharan African countries such as Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea. The fact sheet gives an overview of the situation in the region and ICTJ's approaches in promoting transitional justice in individual countries. ...

ICTJ provides an overview of various United States Commissions of Inquiry. This publication includes briefs on the Senate and House Committee Investigations of the Palmer Raids in 1920, the Senator Frank Church Committee in 1975, a commission into wartime relocation and internment of ...

States have the obligation to prevent human rights violations, investigate them, identify and punish their intellectual authors and accessories after the fact, and may not invoke existing provisions of domestic law to avoid complying with their obligations under international law. ...

A three-judge panel of Peru’s Supreme Court will announce a verdict before the end of this year in the trial of Alberto Fujimori, Peru’s president from 1990-2000, on charges of murder and kidnapping. Prosecutors hold him responsible for the deaths of 25 people at the hands of a death ...

Of the more than 30 truth commissions created since the 1980s, four that were organized in Africa and the Americas are notably good examples of how circumstances in each society helped shape the commissions’ work.

More than 30 countries have created truth commissions to investigate and report on human rights abuses. These commissions of inquiry help seek recognition for victims and promote possibilities for peace, reconciliation and democracy.

ICTJ provides an overview of investigative reports into detention and interrogation practices by the U.S. government. The purpose of this brief is to provide a sampling of reports to survey the ways in which these have been commissioned, what they have covered, and how they relate to ...

Two years after the Democratic Republic of Congo held its first elections since independence, the country is at a crossroads. One of the key challenges facing the DRC today is the question of how the country will address the massive human rights atrocities of its recent past to establ...

In Colombia, the shifting boundaries between drug trafficking and political crime and the tension between security and human rights pose particular challenges for those seeking accountability for past abuses and respect for human rights.

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.

This research brief provides case studies on the use of pardons in Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Peru and South Africa following periods of mass abuse, and highlights subsequent political and civil society action to overcome impunity exacerbated by pardons and amnesties.

Response to the first 100 days of the Obama administration and the disclosure of evidence detailing abusive treatment of detainees in the "war on terror." ICTJ recommends the appointment of a special prosecutor, the creation of an independent, nonpartisan commission of inquiry and con...

Details the range of measures that will be needed to address the consequences of abuses committed during the U.S. "war on terror," including independent investigations, public disclosure of the truth, prosecutions of those responsible for abuses and redress for victims of serious harm...

Transitional justice is a response to systematic or widespread violations of human rights. It seeks recognition for victims and promotion of possibilities for peace, reconciliation and democracy. Transitional justice is not a special form of justice but justice adapted to societies tr...

Of the many challenges that arise when negotiating a transition to peace and an end of war, one of the most difficult can be the tension between prioritizing peace and insisting equally on justice for crimes of the war.

In the absence of governmental action or as preparation for it, some local communities or civil society groups sometime seek to recognize and investigate the legacy of past human rights abuses. Such actions can help lead to more formal transitional justice approaches, including truth ...

Background on the ICC's record in pursuing prosecutions as a response to massive human rights abuses and discusses hybrid court tribunals as a developing judicial strategy. ICTJ offers insight into trends for states to balance international and domestic pressures to combat impunity fo...

Background on the massive human rights violations in the states that declared independence from the Former Yugoslavia from 1991 onwards, including Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, resulting in the deaths of over 140,000 people and four million displaced. The fact sheet cove...

Background on the 2004 ICC arrest warrant for Bosco Ntaganda, wanted for war crimes allegedly committed in the DRC including civilian massacres and the recruitment of child soldiers. In 2009, the Congolese government decided not to arrest Bosco, and instead appointed him a deputy comm...

Situation brief on the International Criminal Court's prosecution against Thomas Lubanga, the former leader of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC) who has been charged with genocide and crimes against humanity. Due to problems with the prosecutor's proposed use of evidence, the tr...

Background on the role of amnesty in processes of transitional justice and the 2009 DRC Amnesty Law. Given a fragile justice system and culture of impunity, this law risks rewarding blanket amnesty for all crimes committed in the DRC. ICTJ gives suggestions to break the culture of imp...