Resource Library

The armed conflict in Northern Uganda, stretching across more than two decades, greatly affected the local populations, which suffered multiple forms of war crimes and gross abuses of human rights. This study assesses the opportunities for providing interim relief to victims of confli...

On March 2 and 3, 2020, transitional justice and anti-corruption policymakers, experts, and activists from the Gambia, Kenya, South Africa, Armenia, and Tunisia met in Tunis for a two-day conference to share solutions to a common problem: How can countries emerging from dictatorship, ...

Colombia's Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP) aims to achieve criminal accountability through a mixed system of restorative and retributive justice. Generally speaking, the SJP envisions large-scale restorative justice measures involving public acknowledgments of responsibility, as ...

This report examines the police vetting in Kenya that was part of a broader reform in response to the 2007-2008 post-election violence, focusing on why civil society became disillusioned with the initiative. Drawing on interviews with civil society representatives and former members o...

In most cases, to be imprisoned in Syria is to disappear. Tens of thousands of people, if not more, have been unlawfully taken prisoner or held incommunicado in the context of the Syrian conflict. This policy paper examines the dark reality of detentions in Syria, its impact on those ...

Since the Gambia's Truth, Reconciliation, and Reparation Commission (TRRC) began public hearings in January 2019, an important part of the country’s narrative has not yet come to light or been publicly acknowledged: the experiences of women. This report brings forward the voices of wo...

This guide is designed to engage young people who are interested in or are working on transitional justice issues in their communities. Intended to serve primarily as a training tool, it provides basic information about transitional justice and related principles and offers tips and s...

Prosecution guidelines provide benchmarks for decision making and act as a shield for prosecutors in the face of undue influence, pressure, or interference. Prosecutors pursuing sensitive cases, such as those involving mass atrocities, ought to do so by applying binding, objective, fa...

This report of the Working Group on Transitional Justice and SDG16+ articulates the contributions of transitional justice to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 16 on peace, justice, and inclusion, but also related goals on gender and inequality. The report cont...

This report presents findings from a study based on interviews with 121 Syrian refugees living in Jordan. It aims to provide a better understanding of the impact the conflict in Syria has had on refugees, including the harms and losses they have suffered; their expectations, concerns,...

This report aims to help practitioners in the transitional justice field to understand the experience of establishing and operating hybrid courts and to address some common assumptions about these entities. To do so, it looks at hybrid or mixed courts in practice, drawing on experienc...

This report focuses on “indirect victims” of human rights violations in Tunisia, namely, the wives, sisters, and children of political prisoners in Tunisia, who suffered discrimination, social exclusion, police violence, and harassment during the dictatorship. Presenting documentation...

This report examines attacks on schools in Syria from multiple angles: from the legal implications of such attacks to the everyday impact on students, teachers, families, and society at large. It is the product of Save Syrian Schools, a collaborative project led by 10 Syrian civil soc...

This report aims to help local governments, victims’ groups, and other stakeholders in Nepal to understand the scope of and potential inherent in local governmental powers and to identify what local governments can do to design and implement initiatives that support victims of conflic...

This report is based on qualitative interviews with Central African refugees living in Chad and Cameroon, in which they were asked about their experience of displacement and their intentions and concerns regarding return, reconciliation, and justice. Refugees said that if peace and ju...

These are especially challenging times for those of us who work to assist societies in dealing with a legacy of atrocities and massive human rights violations. Violent armed conflicts have increased in number, duration, and ferocity around the globe. Immense displacement and waves of ...

In a number of countries around the world, governments have created state-administered reparations programs for victims and communities that were most affected by massive human rights violations. The success of these programs, which often involve thousands of individuals, depends in p...

Lebanon’s civil war continues to impact the Lebanese people, both those who lived through the war and those born after it. While the widespread harms it caused are still visible today, the official denial of both the war and its lasting consequences has left a hole in Lebanon’s histor...

Discussions about a future return of refugees and coexistence among groups currently at war in Syria must begin now, even in the face of ongoing violence and displacement. This report, based on interviews with refugees, makes it clear that the restoration of dignity will be important ...

There is widespread misunderstanding of transitional justice in Nepal, and relevant policy is often motivated by the interests of political leaders and other powerful actors, like the Nepal Army, with little regard for the rights and needs of victims. This report, a collaboration betw...

This report presents the main findings of a multiyear research project conducted by the International Center for Transitional Justice on the challenges and opportunities of responding to serious and massive human rights violations in different contexts. The project commissioned 21 stu...

In many countries of the African Great Lakes region, state-led approaches to transitional justice have been created by wide-ranging agreements or policies that have been later forgotten or only partially implemented. Even when implemented, they are often subject to years of delay and/...

Since Georgia’s independence in 1991, successive governments have struggled to deal with endemic corruption, organized crime, and various disputes along its borders, which sometimes sparked into armed conflict. Efforts to combat corruption and organized crime through its “zero-toleran...

Sexual violence against men and boys in times of conflict or repression is alarmingly common— and takes a markedly consistent form across contexts in terms of how it affects victims and societies as a human rights violation that is taboo to talk about. It has been committed in all cul...

This report offers analysis of the current situation regarding the judicial handling of cases related to the post-election violence in Cote d’Ivoire. It looks at existing legal and political challenges within the domestic proceedings and suggests possible solutions.