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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.

The purpose of Resolution 1325 is to highlight the particular way in which women and girls suffer in situations of conflict, as well as the critical role they play in peacebuilding. To commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the resolution, ICTJ would like celebrate the life and work of one its own women peacebuilders: María Camila Moreno Múnera, head of ICTJ’s Colombia office. She exemplifies what a woman leader can achieve in advancing truth, justice, reparation, and peace.

In response to the recent tragic explosion in Beirut on August 4, 2020, ICTJ and 14 prominent nongovernmental organizations recently issued a joint statement, demanding immediate action to promote accountability and a new non-sectarian political system in Lebanon. The likely preventable explosion represents another appalling consequence of a dysfunctional sectarian political system that has been in place since the end of the country’s 15-yearlong civil war in 1990 and that has afforded impunity to perpetrators of human rights abuses for decades and entrenched a culture of cronyism and corruption in the country.

On September 14, the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) publicly apologized to the victims of the kidnappings they perpetrated during the armed conflict. This unprecedented public declaration from a non-state armed group merits reflection from both the perspective of the transitional justice field as a whole and its implications for Colombia.

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 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.

Beirut, June 23, 2020 — Almost a year and a half after passing Law 105 for the missing and disappeared, the Lebanese government has finally appointed the members of the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared. ICTJ welcomes this action, which is another step closer to uncovering the fate of thousands of victims. However, the appointment of the commissioners will be meaningless, unless the government demonstrates greater commitment to addressing the families’ right to the truth and takes the necessary action to create a commission that is credible and effective.

Sparing almost no corner of the world from its wrath, the COVID-19 pandemic has now spread to every country. In an effort to slow the contagion, governments in most countries have been taking drastic measures requiring all residents other than essential workers to confine themselves in their homes, and shutting down vast sectors of their economies. The impact has been crushing. COVID-19 has profoundly affected every country where ICTJ currently works: Armenia, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Uganda. We recently caught up with ICTJ’s heads of country programs to learn more about the impact the pandemic is having on transitional justice and society more broadly.

ICTJ held a two-day workshop on transitional justice for a group of university students in Beirut on February 14 and 15 as part of its ongoing support to the Committee of the Families of the Kidnapped and Disappeared in Lebanon. The students are currently serving as volunteers on a project to create an archive of the committee’s decades-long struggle and activism.