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The armed conflict in Northern Uganda, stretching across more than two decades, greatly affected the local populations, which suffered multiple forms of war crimes and gross abuses of human rights. This study assesses the opportunities for providing interim relief to victims of conflict-related human rights violations through targeted development programs, pending the establishment of a comprehensive reparations program.

On August 4th, former President Alvaro Uribe surprised the country with a tweet announcing that he would be placed under house arrest for suspected witness tampering and obstruction of justice by the Special Instruction Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice as part of an investigation that has been underway since 2018. According to the court, this decision was made out of a concern for possible obstruction of justice, which appears to be consistent with the ongoing investigation into these same charges. This is undoubtedly an unprecedented situation.

On March 2 and 3, 2020, transitional justice and anti-corruption policymakers, experts, and activists from the Gambia, Kenya, South Africa, Armenia, and Tunisia met in Tunis for a two-day conference to share solutions to a common problem: How can countries emerging from dictatorship, war, or political transitions hold corrupt ex-rulers accountable, recover their ill-gotten assets, and ensure victims achieve justice and obtain reparations? This report gives an overview of the conference and its panel discussions.

On August 18, nearly two decades after Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was brutally assassinated in a car bombing, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon delivered a long-awaited conviction. The judgment found Salim Ayyash guilty of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act, committing a terrorist act, the intentional homicide of Hariri and 21 others, and attempted homicide of the 226 injured. However, the tribunal did not find enough evidence that the three other defendants were aware in advance of the conspiracy and thus acquitted them of all charges. This split verdict makes an uncertain situation in Lebanon even more tenuous.

During this global pandemic, how do organizations such as ICTJ continue with their victim-centered and context-specific work, when their staff members cannot meet face to face with partners bilaterally, much less at organized convenings? The answer to these questions involves both rethinking how to use tools currently available and developing or finding new ones.

Tunis, August 12, 2020 —As the world today commemorates International Youth Day and Tunisia observes it National Women’s Day on August 13, ICTJ is launching the Voices of Memory virtual tour, in partnership with the Voices of Memory Collective, an intergenerational group of Tunisian women, and the University of Birmingham. The result of a collaboration between the Voices of Memory Collective and Tunisian artists, the virtual tour allows visitors to explore and interact with an online version of the widely successful Voices of Memory exhibition that traveled throughout Tunisia in 2018.

It may seem trivial for me to write about why those who continue to mark July 17 as "International Justice Day" should finally stop calling it that. Many human rights groups (including ICTJ), United Nations agencies, and governments have been publicly using that phrase since 2010. It is for victims of massive and systematic human rights violations, including abuses that amount to international crimes under the Rome Statute, that it is important to end the misconception that the phrase encourages.

Colombia's Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP) aims to achieve criminal accountability through a mixed system of restorative and retributive justice. Generally speaking, the SJP envisions large-scale restorative justice measures involving public acknowledgments of responsibility, as well as concrete, symbolic, and collective reparations aimed at satisfying victims while simultaneously reintegrating perpetrators. This report describes the court’s mixed model, delves into its innerworkings, and critically assesses its restorative justice components and their impact.

Since time immemorial, justice for a crime has generally meant punishment of the wrongdoer. Even today, some members of society, including victims and lawmakers, still believe that justice is not served unless the guilty party receives a stern and punitive sentence, such a long prison term or even capital punishment for the most serious crimes. However, the theory of justice has evolved tremendously in the last century, and especially in recent decades. Transitional justice processes, in particular, have helped shift the focus of criminal accountability for gross human violations from punishing the offender to fulfilling the victim’s rights to truth, redress, and guarantees of non-recurrence. In doing so, these processes seek to mend the social fabric in societies emerging from, and often torn apart by, violent conflict or repression and to lay the foundation for lasting peace and reconciliation. A justice that focuses on repairing the harm rather than punishing the crime is commonly referred to as reparative justice. Restorative justice traces its roots to traditional and indigenous judicial systems, in which the whole community often participates in administering justice for a crime. Colombia’s ongoing Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) represents the most ambitious process to date to incorporate restorative justice practices into its mandate and operations. Established by the 2016 peace agreement to hold to account those responsible for mass human rights abuses committed during Colombia’s 50-yearlong civil war with the guerrilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the JEP takes an unprecedented mixed approach that integrates substantive restorative justice strategies alongside retributive justice sanctions. As part their sentencing before the court, perpetrators who acknowledge their responsibility for crimes actively participate in restorative justice measures that serve to repair the harms inflicted on the victims and their communities. The recent ICTJ report A Mixed Approach to International Crimes: The Retributive and Restorative Justice Procedures of Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace describes the court’s mixed model, delves into its innerworkings, and critically assesses its restorative justice components and their impact. Last year, ICTJ hosted a weeklong conference on restorative justice in Bogotá, Colombia, led by three of the world’s most prominent experts in the field: Roberto Cornelli and Adolfo Ceretti from Italy, John Braithwaite from Australia, and ICTJ’s own Deputy Director and Director of Programs Anna Myriam Roccatello. Over the course of the week, these experts met both publicly and privately with members of the JEP, victims, ex-combatants, members of the armed forces, and academics to discuss the role of restorative justice in criminal accountability in general and specifically in the implementation of Colombia’s peace agreement. John Braithwaite, Adolfo Ceretti, and Roberto Cornelli, also made some time to sit down with ICTJ to discuss restorative justice and Colombia’s transitional justice process. The video below presents excerpts from these filmed interviews.

Tunis, July 10, 2020—The Truth and Dignity Commission’s (TDC) final report was at last published on June 24, six year after the TDC began its work. It marks an important milestone in Tunisia’s transition, but the journey ahead to justice and democracy is a long one. Policymakers and practitioners now have the responsibility to take the next step forward.