68 results

Gearing Up the Fight Against Impunity: Dedicated Investigative and Prosecutorial Capacities

This study explores specialized units established in 23 countries to investigate and prosecute serious international crimes. Notwithstanding the challenges faced by these units, the study concludes that countries with a specialized institutional approach are considerably more successf...

several judges dressed in black gowns sit on a judicial bench.
Report

Soft Vengeance: An Interview with South Africa’s Albie Sachs

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

Videos

The Movement of Latin American Hip Hop Expressions and ICTJ Cohost an International Hip Hop Festival on Truth, Memory, and Resistance

Bogotá, November 20, 2020—ICTJ and the Movement of Latin American Hip Hop Expressions have joined forces to cohost the third International Hip Hop Encounter, which will take place virtually this week from November 25 to November 28. The four-day online event will bring together artists and musicians from across Latin America and Africa along with activists, social leaders, and civil society representatives. The festival’s theme is the role of hip hop music and culture in uncovering truth, preserving memory, and resisting violence and oppression.

11/23/20
Press Release

Committing to Justice for Serious Human Rights Violations: Lessons from Hybrid Tribunals

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...

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Elena Naughton

Report

UN Special Rapporteur on Transitional Justice Discusses New Mandate with ICTJ

ICTJ was pleased to host the newly elected United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-recurrence, Fabian Salvioli (Argentina), at its New York office, where he discussed his vision and priorities.

06/26/18
Press Release

To Prevent Enforced Disappearances, Rethink the Justice and Security Equation

With enforced disappearances on the rise, ICTJ President David Tolbert says the path to prevention is clear: the international community must reorder its priorities and change its approach. The disproportionate attention on counterterrorism takes us further away from accountability and prevention, Tolbert writes. He urges the international community to lead the way in unequivocally censoring governments that use enforced disappearance as a political tactic — and ensuring there can be no impunity for this crime.

08/30/17
In Focus

Truth For Its Own Sake

Criminal accountability and the search for truth about abuses committed during Nepal’s armed conflict have become inextricably intertwined, at the expense of victims’ broader rights to truth. But for conflict victims, the truth is more than just a pathway to criminal justice writes ICTJ's Aileen Thomson.

06/27/17
In Focus

Reflections on the Struggle for Justice: Caitlin Reiger

As we look back on 15 years of ICTJ's work, we recognize that our greatest asset is the people whose knowledge, experience, and dedication made our contribution possible. To celebrate all who have been part of ICTJ’s story over the years, we asked some of our former colleagues to share their reflections and memories of moments that stand out: moments that throw the stakes of our work into sharp relief. In the weeks and months to come we will bring you their stories in Reflections on the Struggle for Justice. Caitlin Reiger, ICTJ's former Deputy Director of Prosecutions (2005–2010), reflects on the humanizing power of testimony, on display in East Timor.

01/03/17
In Focus

Contested Transitions: Dilemmas of Transitional Justice in Colombia and Comparative Experience

This volume examines the effects, risks, and potential of extending the field of transitional justice to cases that do not present a key moment of political transition to peace or democracy and instead are defined by political continuity and ongoing conflict. It begins with analyses o...

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Amanda Lyons and Michael Reed

Panel Discussion Examines the Impact of Denial

What happens when a state refuses to acknowledge the suffering of victims of mass atrocities? Or when the public celebrates perpetrators as heroes? Earlier this month, a panel discussion hosted by The International Center for Transitional Justice and New York University’s Center for Global Affairs grappled with the impact of denial on justice.

04/27/16
In Focus

After 10 Years, CAVR Report Still Resonates in Timor-Leste and Around the World

ICTJ spoke with Patrick Walsh, an Australian human rights advocate who helped establish and advise East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation (CAVR).

02/23/16
In Focus

On the Front Lines of Justice: The Struggle for Accountability in National Contexts

On International Criminal Justice Day, 2014, ICTJ joins the global celebrations marking the groundbreaking establishment of the Rome Statute in 1998, which created the International Criminal Court (ICC). To mark the day, we review five contexts where national systems proved it was possible to bring perpetrators to justice where it matters the most.

07/15/14
In Focus

ICTJ Forum Series: Truth Commissions and Peace Mediation

Can truth commissions help secure a just peace following a violent conflict in which massive human rights abuses are committed? In this special series of the ICTJ Forum, we present a series of conversations with some of the world’s top peace mediators and truth commission experts, whose collective experience include years on the front lines of critical peace agreements in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

11/22/13
In Focus

Enforced Disappearances: Justice for the Disappeared Has a Woman’s Face

Enforced disappearances are among the cruelest of crimes. To the kidnapping, torture, and in many cases, murder of the victim, perpetrators intentionally create fear and uncertainty about the fate of the missing person. Although men are predominantly targeted, the impact on women is severe and lasting.

08/30/13
In Focus

ICTJ Program Report: Reparative Justice

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.

05/13/13
In Focus

ICTJ Program Report: Gender Justice

In this edition of ICTJ's Program report, Kelli Muddell, director of ICTJ's Gender Justice program, reflects on ICTJ’s vision of gender justice, the challenges facing survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in times of transition, and how ICTJ is working to address inequality in countries like Colombia, Nepal, and Tunisia.

02/21/13
In Focus

Justice for the Disappeared is at the Heart of Transitional Justice

As the world marks August 30, the International Day of the Disappeared, we are reminded that forced disappearances and transitional justice share a common history. Indeed, processes working in concert that came to form the field of transitional justice were born from the search for truth and justice about the disappeared.

08/28/12
In Focus

The CAVR and the 2006 Displacement Crisis in Timor-Leste: Reflections on Truth-Telling, Dialogue, and Durable Solutions

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 work...

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Luiz Vieira

Report

Dealing with the 2006 Internal Displacement Crisis in Timor-Leste: Between Reparations and Humanitarian Policymaking

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 resol...

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Peter Van der Auweraert

Report

Decades After Dictatorship, Argentina's Courts Still Lead the Fight for Accountability

Argentina’s trials for crimes committed during the dictatorship of military juntas are widely seen as a successful national effort to seek accountability for past abuses. And while victims’ demands for justice continue to remain high, the judiciary is facing challenges to ensure the cases are dealt with expeditiously and fairly. In a interview for ICTJ's Spanish podcast series "Lessons from Latin America," Mirna Goransky, Assistant General Prosecutor for the Attorney General’s Office shares her perspectives on human rights trials in Argentina.

07/26/12
In Focus

The Past That Has Not Passed: Human Rights Violations in Papua Before and After Reformasi

This joint report released today by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and the Institute for Human Rights Study and Advocacy (ELSHAM-Papua) provides important insight into the ongoing debate on steps required to achieve a sustainable peace in Papua. The report reviews Papua's recent history within a transitional justice framework, and provides expert recommendations on truth seeking, justice, reparations, institutional reform, and enforcing the rights of women victims.

06/28/12
In Focus

The Past That Has Not Passed: Human Rights Violations in Papua Before and After Reformasi

This joint report by ICTJ and the Institute for Human Rights Study and Advocacy (ELSHAM-Papua) provides important insight into the ongoing debate on steps required to achieve a sustainable peace in Papua. The report reviews Papua's recent history within a transitional justice framewor...

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ICTJ and ELSHAM

Report

“Enough Is Enough!” Testimonies of Papuan Women Victims of Violence and Human Rights Violations 1963–2009

“We women of Papua have been bruised, cornered, besieged from all directions. We are not safe at home, and even less so outside the home. The burden we bear to feed our children is too heavy. The history of the Papuan people is covered in blood, and women are no exception as victims o...

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ICTJ, the Women Commission, and the Women Working Group of Papuan People Assembly

Report

Indonesia: Submission to the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council 13th Session

Following a restive year, Indonesia's human rights record is one of the situations under review during the 13th session of the UN Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process in May–June 2012.

01/10/12
In Focus

Comment by ICTJ on the Bill Establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Indonesia1

The People’s Representative Assembly of Indonesia passed on September 7, 2004, a bill creating a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”, which is charged with clarifying abuses committed before 2000 and determining whether to award individualized amnesties for perpetrators and reparati...

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ICTJ; Eduardo González