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"Victims: Anonymous in War, Protagonists in Peace" is the story of an unprecedented event in world peace accords: that the victims were - during the negotiations - at the center of the construction of the justice agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC guerilla.

The story of Mark and Sharon, two Kenyan youths who believed in the importance of unveiling the truth about past crimes in Kenya and participated in the TJRC process.

The story of two courageous women from Colombia, and their struggle for acknowledgement and redress in a country where more than four million people have been affected by decades of civil war.

Perspectives of Colombians particularly affected by the country's conflict – women, young people, and indigenous peoples – who are demanding truth.

The ICTJ office in Colombia joined forces with the Movement of Latin American Expressions of Hip Hop (MELAH) and the online cultural outlet Revista Cartel Urbano to host the hybrid virtual and live International Hip Hop Encounter in Bogotá, Colombia.

Canadian youth not only want to know the truth about what happened at the Indian Residential Schools –they want to learn about it in their classrooms.

On February 26, 2020, the International Center for Transitional Justice and NYU Law’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice welcomed former President of Colombia and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Juan Manuel Santos for a conversation on the role of transitional justice in peace negoti...

Why pursue transitional justice in the aftermath of massive human rights violations? This video provides a window into the debate about the relevance of transitional justice in today’s world.

ICTJ Vice President Paul Seils interviewed South African judge and human rights activist Albie Sachs.

ICTJ sat down with three prominent experts on restorative justice, to learn more about their experiences, restorative justice, and its role in transitional justice and Colombia.

There is no way to calm the pain left by war, much less erase the traces or water down the responsibilities into oblivion.  What does exist are the experiences of people who are making or made that transition in search of reconciliation.  These are some of their voices.

Bulla Karatasi: The Forgotten Massacre, produced by ICTJ and Kenyan media house Africa Uncensored, is the first ever in-depth documentary film to explore the events surrounding the massacre that took place in Kenya's northern region of Garissa in November 1980 and its ongoing impact on ...

Two women abducted by the Lord´s Resistance Army (LRA) return home with their children born of war and fight to be included in a society that deems them criminals.

The two goals of peace and justice, rather than being exclusive, are mutually reinforcing. When justice is ignored, the danger of violence recurring remains high.

ICTJ's President, as well as several ICTJ directors, speak about the critical need to address former injustices in order to prevent future conflicts.

On January 27, 2022, the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group will examine Uganda’s human rights record. The UPR process presents an important opportunity to spotlight the human rights situation in the country, and recommend actions that the government of Uganda should take to fulfill its human rights obligations.

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.

New York, January 21, 2022—ICTJ will host an online course, entitled “Prevention and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence: The Role of Transitional Justice,” from March 14 through 18, 2022. Prevention has emerged as a top priority on international policy agendas for sustainable peace and development and global governance, and understanding the preventive capacity of transitional justice is more imperative than ever.

On November 25, 2021, The Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) presented its 17-volume final report and recommendations to President Adama Barrow, after multiple delays. The final report includes a record of serious human rights violations committed under Jammeh’s repressive regime and recommendations for pursuing justice. Despite the challenges, steps have already been taken that offer hope that the TRRC’s recommendations will take effect.

This study explores a transitional justice approach to the dilemma of foreign fighters in violent conflict. Such an approach can help center human rights in comprehensive responses to foreign fighters, and shift the current focus from security and punishment to justice and long-term p...

Image of Children looking through holes in a tent at al-Hol displacement camp in Hasaka governorate, Syria, on April 2, 2019.

New York, December 10, 2021—In contexts such as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Iraq, Somalia, and Syria, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of individuals have crossed national borders to engage in violent conflicts in which serious human rights violations and mass atrocities have been committed...

When reflecting on peace agreements and their implementation, it is tempting to begin by saying that these processes are generally slow and complex. While that may be true in many contexts, it contributes little to the discussion about what has happened in Colombia since the government signed a final peace deal in November 2016 with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC-EP—the oldest and largest guerrilla group in the county—that ostensibly ended 50 years of war.

The Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission held its first public hearing in Cumberland, Allegany County, Maryland, on October 2, 2021. The event, broadcast live from Emmanuel Episcopal Church, brought together commissioners, panelists, and guests to acknowledge and memorialize the tragic lynching of 18-year-old Robert Hughes (aka William Burns) in Cumberland in 1907. In the coming months, the commission will convene several more of these public hearings in counties across the state of Maryland.

The global COVID-19 pandemic forced many countries to impose emergency measures, such as curfews and community lockdowns, to stem the spread of the virus. To enforce these measures, some societies have given regular police forces increased power to enforce the measures, while others h...

Expectations for advancing much-needed justice and dismantling state and non-state criminal networks that persistently violate human rights have been dashed over the past three years in Mexico. Violence and impunity have increased. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's campaign promises have not materialized in a serious effort to address the lack of security in the country or the justice system’s inefficiency. However, several efforts have persisted, characterized by cooperation among state institutions, civil society, and victims’ groups that not only give hope, but confirm the way forward.

For many young people in countries that have experienced gross human rights violations, hip hop culture has been a lifeline and a surefire way to communicate their concerns and their will to resist oppression and change reality for the better. Through its initiatives in several countri...

Alonso Ojeda Awad and Medardo Correa joined Colombia’s notorious leftist guerrilla group the National Liberation Army (ELN) in their youth. After fighting with the group for several years, they and a handful of other ELN members demobilized voluntarily in the 1980’s. But it was not until 2019 that they were able to sit down with former members of paramilitary groups to discuss acknowledgment and responsibility for past crimes, reparation, and the importance of non-recurrence.

On July 13, 2021, the Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) presented an award to ICTJ for its sustained support of the commission and its commitment to the country’s transitional justice process. The award comes as the TRRC concludes its work and prepares to submit its final report to the country’s president by September 30, 2021.

“No peace without justice” is a chant that filled the streets of the United States last year following the murder George Floyd by police in May 2020. This same chant has animated protest movements and social and political upheaval in many countries around the world. We at ICTJ know from our experience that these calls for justice are for something far more encompassing than criminal accountability alone.

This study analyzes how transitional justice in Sierra Leone has contributed to prevention by responding to the grievances of those harmed by violations, reducing exclusion, addressing through institutional reforms the causes of past violence, and catalyzing long-term change. While tr...

This study examines the preventive effect of transitional justice in Peru in the aftermath of internal conflict and authoritarianism, focusing on the violence’s root causes and the differentiated impact on victims and affected communities. It contends that while transitional justice h...

This report examines the preventive impact of transitional justice mechanisms in Colombia before the 2016 peace agreement. It finds that these measures have contributed to prevention by strengthening institutional responses to rights violations, shaping the public agenda, developing a...

This report summarizes the findings of an ICTJ research project on the contribution of transitional justice to prevention. Drawing from five country case studies, it contends that addressing the past can help to prevent the recurrence not only of human rights violations but also viole...

A young person with back facing the viewer is wearing a T-shirt that reads “Colombia in Peace"

This year marks ICTJ’s 20th anniversary. For the past two decades, the organization has engaged in more than 50 countries, providing technical assistance and other critical support to victims, civil society, governments, and other stakeholders. Since its beginnings, ICTJ has served as a meeting point for transitional justice experts and practitioners and a hub of knowledge, research, and analysis. As a think tank that does, it has been at the forefront of the field’s evolution.

This briefing paper examines how transitional justice approaches can guide the discussion around dismantling systemic racism in the United States to focus on root causes of violence and racial injustice. Drawing from relevant experiences internationally and within the United States, i...

A significant portion of Colombian society has been indifferent to the pain of those who lived through the war in the flesh. Some have even denied the existence of an internal armed conflict. This is why it is necessary for us to recount our early and recent history. A new, more comprehensive and nuanced narrative must emerge from the testimonies of victims, responsible parties, and even spectators of this unending war.

With a special court that has yet to open a trial and a truth commission that is not up and running, international attention on victims in the Central African Republic is waning. Since 2015, the unfulfilled promises of justice made to these victims have failed to address their daily realities and needs for immediate moral, physical, and material reparations, writes Rim El Gantri, one of the authors of a recent study by ICTJ and Cordaid.

On March 31, 2021, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court upheld the Trial Chamber I’s acquittal of former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé of all charges relating to crimes against humanity they allegedly committed during Côte d’Ivoire’s 2010-2011 post-election crisis. While the acquittal may be frustrating to many pursuing justice and accountability in Côte d’Ivoire, a silver lining is that it could mean tangible benefits for victims.

New York, March 10, 2021—“We want to turn the page, but not at the cost of justice”—that was a message repeated by victims of human rights abuses interviewed in a new report released today on transitional justice in the Central African Republic (CAR). Produced by the International Center for Transitional Justice and Cordaid, ‘A Drop of Water on a Hot Stone’: Justice for Victims in the Central African Republic presents findings from a study exploring victim-centered approaches to justice in CAR and their feasibility in a context of profound fragility and extreme poverty.

Providing justice to victims of human rights abuses in fragile contexts such as the Central African Republic (CAR) is challenging for reasons related not only to the state’s stability, capacity, and political will, but also socioeconomic inequality in the country. This research report...

A young girl stands in the doorway to her house

2020 was a year of unforeseen hardships throughout the world. We may wish to write off last year as a loss and move forward. However, looking back on it as we do in this 2020 Year in Review, in which we highlight our most read content, we can find and take heart in important victories and apply lessons learned in 2021 and beyond.

On February 4, 2021, the International Criminal Court issued its judgment in the case of the Prosecutor v Dominic Ongwen. The ICC found Ongwen guilty of 61 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Northern Uganda between July 1, 2002, and December 31, 2005. The verdict recognizes the enduring impact of the crimes on the victims, their families, and Ugandan society more generally.

On January 14, 2021, Uganda held presidential and parliamentary elections. Incumbent President Museveni, who has been in power for 34 years, faced off against 10 opposition candidates, including pop star-turned-politician and main contender Robert Kyagulanyi, also known by his stage name Bobi Wine, of the National Unity Platform (NUP). The 2021 elections saw unprecedented state-sponsored violence, harassment of opposition candidates, and repression of civil society.

New York, January 25, 2021—"You cannot deliver 500 kilograms of transitional justice,” explains a high-level UN official in a new ICTJ report released today that explores the theoretical and practical challenges of measuring the results of transitional justice processes. These processes are complex and politically contested and are thus notoriously difficult to evaluate. The report offers key insights related to and tools for evaluating and monitoring transitional justice processes and assessing their impact.

Because transitional justice processes are complex, politically contested, and not necessarily linear, they present unique theoretical and practical challenges for measuring their results. This report seeks to improve monitoring and evaluation practices and support evidence-based proc...

Children, women, and men look at a wall covered in faces of people.

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.

The democratic transition in Ethiopia is taking a worrisome turn. The sweeping reforms introduced by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in 2018 after decades of repressive rule and three years of deadly protests raised hopes for a more just and free society, one in which power is distributed equally among the country’s many ethnic groups. Worryingly, the failure to reach an inclusive political agreement on the way forward has triggered intercommunal violence and conflicts that have left hundreds of people dead and more than 2.7 million displaced throughout the country.

In what UN Women describes as the “shadow pandemic,” rates of violence against women have soared since the public health and economic crises brought about by COVID-19. With stay-at-home orders in place in countries around the world, women are more susceptible than ever to domestic violence. In countries affected by conflict or repressive rule, all forms of sexual and gender-based violence are on the rise. The ICTJ Gender Modules offer a timely tool to raise awareness about these issues and help develop gender-sensitive responses to them.

Invoking the principle of universal jurisdiction opens the door to the possibility of some accountability in circumstances where justice is not possible in countries where the crimes took place. This study considers the challenges facing the exercise of universal jurisdiction and asse...

Côte d’Ivoire descended into chaos following the October 2010 elections. One of the enduring lessons from this tragic experience could be that elections should never give a reason to set one’s country on fire. Like it or not, however, presidential elections in Côte d’Ivoire have become a malaise that grips the country every five years. And while the 2015 presidential elections were carried out peacefully, the recent October 2020 elections unfortunately were not. The tensions and violence that accompanied it, though far less devastating, brought back macabre memories of the 2010 post-election carnage that left 3,000 people dead and forced more an a million to flee their homes.