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Following field research in late 2009 and a 2010 workshop in Kinshasa, ICTJ produced a report in French on the challenges of enforcing court-ordered reparations. This briefing paper outlines and summarizes the challenges and recommendations discussed in the report. It also proposes additional steps that the government, international community, victims and civil society organizations can take to address the failure of the DRC to fulfill outstanding orders for reparations, as well as broader measures that can be implemented, including non-judicial reparations measures. (French)

Based on significant field research and interviews with the Higher National de-Baathification Commission, this report focuses on Iraq’s purge of members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, which is the most well-known example of large-scale and politically based dismissals in the Middle East and North Africa. The report summarizes the structure and impact of de-Baathification from 2003 to 2011. It gives unique insight into de-Baathification’s goals, framework, impact, and problems. It includes a focused look at de-Baathification in Iraq’s Ministry of Finance from 2003 to 2006 and summarizes seven key lessons for policy makers in other countries.

This publication provides an overview of the essential best practices guiding the main aspects of a truth commission, answering basic questions relating to its goals, powers, operations, framework, protections for commissioners and witnesses, and reporting. Its intention is to provide practical guidelines for practitioners, commission staff, and political leaders on a wide spectrum of experiences that can be adapted to suit the unique social, political, and legal context of the state.

This briefing paper focuses on the topic of prosecuting international and other serious crimes in Kenya, including crimes committed in the context of the postelection crisis of late 2007 and early 2008. In particular, it identifies and analyzes obstacles and opportunities for such prosecutions within current legal and institutional frameworks.

This publication is intended to facilitate the process of drafting a mandate for a truth commission charged with the nonjudicial investigation of serious human rights violations. It covers the different aspects of a legal mandate that are necessary to enable an effective truth-seeking body, including: the objectives, the definition of the object of inquiry the normative, and policy orientations entrusted to the commission. It provides several examples of how laws and decrees in different countries have tackled the elements of a commission’s mandate, which are meant for illustration only, not as models to follow. The document is designed to be used by government officials, civil society activists, victims’ organizations and other stakeholders in a transitional justice process.

This report evaluates the government of Peru’s partial results in providing compensation to victims of the internal armed conflict that devastated the country from 1980 to 2000. It provides a detailed analysis of the process of implementing the Comprehensive Reparations Plan, established on the basis of recommendations made by the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (2003). The report also reflects on the relationship between development policies and reparations in considering investment projects undertaken to date as part of the Collective Reparations Program.

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 and jurisprudence to criminally prosecute forced displacement as a war crime or a crime against humanity, whether the displacement in question is internal or across international borders. When it constitutes a serious crime under international law, forced displacement should be prosecuted for the same reasons as other serious crimes.

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 who have specifically faced gender-based violence and injustice within the trajectory of displacement. This paper explores the relationship between transitional justice and forced migration from a gendered perspective.

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 these actors, creating tensions as well as opportunities for collaboration and cooperation. This paper focuses on the specific concerns of humanitarian actors regarding transitional justice in contexts of displacement, and offers some suggestions for bridging the apparent divide between humanitarian and transitional justice actors.

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 transitional justice measures involving reparations for victims of human rights abuses.