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The establishment of temporary international criminal tribunals has given rise to complex legal, technical, and political questions regarding their post-closure residual functions.

Since the 1950s, the FARC had been present in the southern department of Caquetá in Colombia. The local population suffered from decades of armed confrontations between the FARC and the Colombian Army. This is the story of the collective memory project implemented with the El Pato municipal farmers’ association (AMCOP) in the El Pato-Balsillas farmer reserve zone.

Colombia is at a crossroads after the results of the first round of the presidential elections, and the results could have grave consequences for the country's ongoing peace talks. In this interview, Maria Camila Moreno, director of ICTJ's Colombia program explains what's at stake.

Colombia marked the country’s first National Day of Memory and Solidarity with the Victims April 9. For the millions who have suffered human rights violations in Colombia’s entrenched armed conflict, this was a day for their voices to be heard and their suffering to be acknowledged by the state; a nationwide call for accountability and reconciliation in a highly divided society.

Nearly a decade after Colombia’s first transitional justice mechanisms were created, the country is now weighing options for the establishment of an official truth commission. To examine and inform these options, the International Center for Transitional Justice is hosting the International Course on Truth Commissions from March 11-15, 2013, in Villa de Leyva, Colombia. The course will be modeled after ICTJ’s international Intensive Course on Truth Commissions, which has been held for five consecutive years.

In Colombia, international crimes can be tried under the ordinary national jurisdiction as well as a limited number of cases under the Justice and Peace Law of 2005 (JPL). Neither jurisdiction has served to highlight the widespread or systematic nature of state-sponsored violence.

This manual was created as part of the Framework Cooperation Agreement between the International Center for Transitional Justice and the Attorney General’s Office, with the aim of providing technical assistance to the National Unit for Analysis and Context (UNAC) and supporting the development of protocols, procedures, and methodologies related to the investigation and analysis of system crimes in Colombia.

A new paper by the ICTJ on the peace negotiations in Colombia considers the competing goals of punishing members of the FARC who are deemed most responsible for committing serious crimes.

For the past three years, April 9th has become an important date to recognize more than 6 million victims of the armed conflict in Colombia. This year, hundreds of Colombians again went to the streets, to mark the National Day of Memory and Solidarity with Victims, as established by Law 1448 –also known as the Victims Law. Across the country, citizens reaffirmed their pledge of sin olvido –to never forget. While the government and the FARC continue to negotiate to put an end to an armed conflict that has lasted for more than 50 years, demonstrators voiced their demands for justice, truth and reparation to be a part of the plans for peace. “April 9th is a day to recall that the tragic history of our country is part of our collective memory of pain,” says María Camila Moreno, director of ICTJ’s Colombia program. “We should see and listen to the multitude of voices, memories, and strengths of victims and survivors.” Colombians arrived in Bogotá from various regions of the country and from different ethnic backgrounds –afrocolombians, indigenous and non-indigenous alike– came together to be part of the day’s events, organized by the Colombian Congress, the National Center for Historical Memory, the Victims Unit and other institutional and civil society organizations from the regions. The day started with the opening of the exhibition Conflict in High Resolution (Conflicto en Alta Resolución) in which Colombian youth conveyed memories of the conflict through plastic sculptures and other visual art. In recognition of the day, Colombia’s Congress hosted a special session in which victims of the conflict participated. At the event, President Juan Manuel Santos addressed the audience: “To attain peace is the most valuable achievement of any society. In the case of Colombia, a country that has suffered so much because of the violence, it has an even greater value.” In addition, people marched through the in the streets of the capital following the so called “Memory Route,” beginning at the National Park and ending in Plaza de Bolivar, in the city center. Many marchers carried photographs of relatives that were killed or disappeared, faces in a sea of white flags, symbols of the demand for peace. Many of the demonstrators held banners calling for justice and reparation for victims. “The National Memory Day is not a simple claim, nor a call for sentimentalism: it is, above all, a reparative act, aimed at the reconstruction of civic trust,” said Moreno.

BOGOTÁ, May 12, 2011—The decision by President Juan Manuel Santos to recognize the existence of an internal armed conflict in Colombia is a positive step toward transparency and truth-telling in that country, ICTJ said today. The Colombian government has denied for years the existence of an internal armed conflict there, although it was never in doubt from an international law perspective.