Search

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.

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 refugees living in the areas where the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) operates are excluded from the 1951 Refugee Convention, and policies regarding restitution as a component of durable solutions to displacement have not typically been viewed as relevant to the Palestinian case. This paper explores the conceptual and practical challenges that arise when considering restitution for Palestinian refugees, and addresses these challenges in order to highlight the legal, practical, and political relevance of property restitution to reaching a viable settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The latest ICTJ Program Report explores transitional justice issues in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and charts our work in this important and dynamic region. Claudio Cordone, ICTJ’s program director covering the MENA region, discusses individual country scenarios, prospects for transitional justice processes and explains ICTJ’s involvement and impact. Cordone speaks about transitional justice principles being at the root of popular uprisings referred to as “Arab Spring” and the challenges facing societies in their efforts to reckon with legacies of dictatorships and recent violence. He describes ICTJ’s efforts to address the impact of violence on women and promote their participation in transitional justice initiatives. The interview provides a thorough overview of ongoing initiatives and future prospects in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territory.

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 internal displacement, access to land is regulated under customary law and held under informal tenure.

On August 30, 2012, ICTJ joined government officials and civil society in Freetown to celebrate the launch of a new website for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone and welcome the prospects for revitalization of Sierra Leone’s reconciliation.

Transitional Justice is often pursued in contexts where people have been forced from their homes by human rights violations and have suffered additional abuses while displaced. Little attention has been paid, however, to how transitional justice measures can respond to the injustices of displacement. Transitional Justice and Displacement is the result of a collaborative research project of the International Center for Transitional Justice and the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement. It examines the capacity of transitional justice measures to address displacement, engage the justice claims of displaced persons, and support durable solutions, and analyzes the links between transitional justice and the interventions of humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding actors. The book makes a compelling case for ensuring that justice measures address displacement and that responses to displacement incorporate transitional justice.

Accountability for violations against children in armed conflict is best achieved through a comprehensive approach to justice that addresses the responsibility of perpetrators and the rights of victims within a broader process of social change. This is the key message to be delivered by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) on September 19, 2012, during the UN Security Council’s Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict.

In an address to the UN Security Council, ICTJ President David Tolbert urged States to prioritize transitional justice as an integrated approach to seeking accountability for crimes against children in armed conflict.

The Fourth Intensive Course on Truth Commissions, presented by ICTJ in partnership with the Barcelona International Peace Resource Center (BIPRC), focuses this year on the challenge of recognizing the experiences of vulnerable populations in the work of truth commissions. Practitioners and academics representing 17 countries will participate in the week-long course, including members of the Brazilian and Ivorian Truth Commissions, the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare TRC Process, and ICTJ experts from around the world.

Since independence Ugandans have endured episodes of violence and human rights abuses across successive political regimes and transitions with devastating consequences. During two decades of conflict in the northern Uganda involving the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the government forces, human rights abuses were perpetrated against individuals, families, and communities. With the return to peace, the government, victims’ groups, and civil society are now considering how to move forward with a national policy on transitional justice that includes reparations for victims in the north given the magnitude of serious violations that were committed.