Resource Library

On July 10 and 11, ICTJ convened a high-level dialogue in Geneva that brought members of Syria’s newly established transitional justice commissions together with international experts and representatives from Syrian civil society represented by the Bridges of Truth project and victims’ groups and multilateral institutions. The two-day event provided guidance to the commissioners as they develop and implement their mandates and supported Syrian-led efforts to build transparent and inclusive institutions.

On June 8, Colombia woke up to the grim news that Miguel Uribe Turbay, a 39-year-old senator and presidential hopeful for the right-wing Centro Democrático party, had been gravely wounded after being shot. More than three weeks have passed since the attack and Uribe remains in critical condition, while Colombians, concerned about renewed democratic instability, have found themselves haunted by ghosts from the past.

Abuja, June 19, 2025—The African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU), in collaboration with the Consortium implementing the Initiative for Transitional Justice in Africa (ITJA), led by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and co-implemented by the Africa Transitional Justice...

From May 25 to June 1, 2025, ICTJ held a series of community dialogues in three rural regions of the Gambia on sexual and gender-based violence, including crimes committed during the Yahya Jammeh dictatorship. The dialogues brought together 122 individuals, including community leaders, victims, and young people, to share their experiences and discuss pathways for justice.

On April 14, 2025, the Johannesburg High Court handed down a landmark judgment. From his bench in courtroom 4D, Judge Dario Dosio dismissed the defense team’s objections to the inclusion of murder and apartheid as crimes against humanity charges in the indictment against two individuals accused of a deadly 1982 attack on anti-apartheid student activists. In so doing, the court cleared the way for crimes against humanity charges to be pursued in a South African domestic court for the first time. It also opened the door to the first ever prosecution of apartheid as a crime against humanity anywhere in the world.

ICTJ welcomes the formation of two new independent institutions in Syria: the National Commission for Transitional Justice and the National Commission for the Missing. Established by presidential decree, these commissions represent a historic step forward in acknowledging the demands of victims and their families and formally responding to the widespread violations committed in Syria over the last decades.

ICTJ has announced the digital release of its award-winning short animated documentary that explores the trauma and resilience of families of the disappeared in Syria. After an extensive tour of international film festivals in Asia, Europe, and North America, the acclaimed film recently returned home for its first screening in Syria. Now, it is available to audiences the world over on the ICTJ website and YouTube channel.

This April, Sudan marked a double anniversary: one of the 2019 revolution that toppled President Omar al Bashir’s decades-long repressive regime, the other of the 2023 outbreak of the ongoing civil war that has devastated the country. These contrasting occasions bring with them great hopes and deep pain. They also raise pressing questions: How long will Sudan have to suffer while the world’s attention seems turned the other way? How long will the voices of Sudanese who yearn for peace and justice continue to be sidelined?

In recent years, states have increasingly imposed sanctions in relation to the commission of human rights violations, which has expanded their potential to advance transitional justice goals. In this context, ICTJ recently published a new report offering an analysis of international sanctions from a transitional justice perspective. In this interview, the report's author, ICTJ Senior Expert Elena Naughton, discusses how sanctions may advance or hinder efforts to deliver accountability, acknowledge and redress victims, and prevent recurrence in response to massive human rights abuses.

Since long before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has spread disinformation to justify its aggression, disguising their longstanding premises that Ukraine is, allegedly, not a sovereign nation, and its statehood is conditioned upon an alliance with Russia. Countering these narratives is not only valuable for Ukrainians, but also for buoying any democratic transformations in Russia and for establishing a more nuanced understanding of the history of Central and Eastern Europe.