Resource Library

The United States has never collectively confronted its history of colonialism, slavery, and racism in an effort to reform the systems that perpetuate harms to Black communities and other marginalized groups, or to redress these wrongs. Events in recent years, however, have amplified ...

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...

Truth commissions can provide a stage for a potentially powerful encounter with the past (and present) at the level of public discourse. While their capacity to effect transformation in societies marked by patterns of identity-related marginalization and exclusion is limited (and the ...

Refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) have often been directly affected by the crimes truth commissions seek to expose, and have a major stake in the success of transitional justice processes, which can shape the stability of post-conflict communities as well as the prospec...

An internal armed conflict involving the government, leftist guerrillas, and a variety of paramilitary groups and criminal bands has endured in Colombia for the last 60 years, generating massive levels of displacement. A comprehensive truth commission that investigates major human rig...

This briefing paper details and analyzes the progress made so far in Tunisia to implement its historic Transitional Justice Law, with a particular focus on the Truth and Dignity Commission, created one year ago.

The situation in Uganda presented a challenging first case for the International Criminal Court (ICC). The origins of the conflict between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the government are complex, and many people in the north resent the government for failing to protect them fr...

This report presents findings from a study based on interviews with 121 Syrian refugees living in Jordan. It aims to provide a better understanding of the impact the conflict in Syria has had on refugees, including the harms and losses they have suffered; their expectations, concerns,...

This briefing paper presents findings from a study based on interviews with 121 Syrian refugees living in Jordan. It aims to provide a better understanding of the impact the conflict in Syria has had on refugees, including the harms and losses they have suffered; their expectations, c...

In July 2008 the Timorese-Indonesian Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) submitted its final report on atrocities committed in East Timor in 1999. Previously the CTF had been criticized by human rights groups, especially in relation to its power to recommend amnesties and its con...

Timor-Leste has implemented a number of transitional justice mechanisms to address the legacy of human rights violations that occurred in relation to the 1975 Timorese civil war and 24-year Indonesian occupation.These mechanisms have failed to provide victims with meaningful reparatio...

In dealing with counterterrorism detainees after 2001, the United States breached its obligations under the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT) and other sources of international human rights and humanitarian law. Although the current administration has turned away from some former p...

In the absence of governmental action or as preparation for it, some local communities or civil society groups sometime seek to recognize and investigate the legacy of past human rights abuses. Such actions can help lead to more formal transitional justice approaches, including truth ...

There is now an opportunity to design and implement a reparations program for victims of human rights and humanitarian law violations in Uganda. As with other countries emerging from conflict, the contours of a Ugandan reparations policy have been the subject of extended debate and ge...

In the lead up to Afghanistan's second cycle of elections in 2009 and 2010, this report aims to analyze the legal and operational framework for vetting candidates in the upcoming elections; describe and assess the challenges to the vetting process in the previous elections; map out po...

This publication, written for the UNDP, provides operational guidelines on the implementation of vetting programs in post-conflict societies.

In many countries of the African Great Lakes region, state-led approaches to transitional justice have been created by wide-ranging agreements or policies that have been later forgotten or only partially implemented. Even when implemented, they are often subject to years of delay and/...

This report presents the findings of an in-depth survey of more than 400 conflict victims in 10 districts of Nepal, researching their immediate and long-term needs and aspirations. Participants included those who had received benefits through the government’s Interim Relief Program an...

More than fifty years of conflict in Colombia have left hundreds of thousands of victims of multiple forms of violence, such as forced disappearance, murder, extra-judicial executions, kidnappings, torture and various forms of sexual and gender-based violence, including rape.

This paper evaluates the Dujail trial, the first of fourteen trials in Iraq against persons accused of crimes against humanity. Although the trial was potentially a new attempt at Iraqi justice, it fell short in many ways. Ultimately, it was rendered ineffective due to political inter...

Women face a double marginalization under authoritarian regimes and during and after violent conflicts. Nonetheless, reparations programs are rarely designed to address the needs of women victims. What Happened to the Women? Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations, argues f...

Background on the ICC's record in pursuing prosecutions as a response to massive human rights abuses and discusses hybrid court tribunals as a developing judicial strategy. ICTJ offers insight into trends for states to balance international and domestic pressures to combat impunity fo...

Transitional justice is a response to systematic or widespread violations of human rights. It seeks recognition for victims and promotion of possibilities for peace, reconciliation and democracy. Transitional justice is not a special form of justice but justice adapted to societies tr...

Sexual violence against men and boys in times of conflict or repression is alarmingly common— and takes a markedly consistent form across contexts in terms of how it affects victims and societies as a human rights violation that is taboo to talk about. It has been committed in all cul...

This report compares findings from two population-based surveys (in 2005 and 2007) in districts of northern Uganda most affected by 21 years of conflict, including the Acholi districts. The studies capture attitudes about peace, justice, and social reconstruction. Developing a deeper...

Hybrid courts have ranged from the ad hoc international Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (ICTY and ICTR respectively), to the treaty-based Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) and Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), to international assista...

Background on the 2004 ICC arrest warrant for Bosco Ntaganda, wanted for war crimes allegedly committed in the DRC including civilian massacres and the recruitment of child soldiers. In 2009, the Congolese government decided not to arrest Bosco, and instead appointed him a deputy comm...

This report focuses on “indirect victims” of human rights violations in Tunisia, namely, the wives, sisters, and children of political prisoners in Tunisia, who suffered discrimination, social exclusion, police violence, and harassment during the dictatorship. Presenting documentation...

This report presents the findings from research on the needs and expectations of women survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in Nepal. Based on in-depth interviews, it explores what happened to these survivors during the country’s decade-long war (1996-2006), what they need no...

Since the Gambia's Truth, Reconciliation, and Reparation Commission (TRRC) began public hearings in January 2019, an important part of the country’s narrative has not yet come to light or been publicly acknowledged: the experiences of women. This report brings forward the voices of wo...

One of the major challenges facing parliamentary democracy can be the restriction of people's participation in democratic processes, especially the opportunity to vote in periodic elections.

Building on its work in Tunisia since 2012, ICTJ met with representatives of youth-led civil society organizations and social movements and state institutions involved in pursuing accountability for Ben Ali-era corruption. This paper focuses on the strategies and insights that members...

In February 2019, ICTJ hosted an international symposium on gender and transitional justice in Tunisia that brought together representatives from eight countries where ICTJ has been actively engaged in implementing a gender-focused approach to its programming. This briefing paper pres...