Resource Library

Despite earlier efforts to envision a national transitional justice policy, Ukraine remains overly cautious about establishing one. This report provides a robust substantiation of why Ukraine should revive its holistic transitional justice policymaking. In the first part, it debunks t...

Colombia currently faces a transformed, fragmented form of violence centered on territorial and social control rather than the traditional insurgency. This report argues that state security strategies remain misaligned, relying on outdated military approaches and metrics. To avoid lon...

This study aims to communicate the perspectives, expectations, and needs of South Sudanese displaced persons to relevant policymakers and thereby inform the ongoing transitional justice efforts emanating from South Sudan’s 2018 revitalized peace agreement. It also provides lessons lea...

This report assesses the gender sensitivity of the African Union Transitional Justice Policy (AUTJP). Drawing on continental practice and scholarship, it identifies opportunities for AU member states, civil society, and donors to strengthen the policy’s implementation and its responsi...

This report summarizes the key observations offered by Syrians during community dialogues in April 2025. Convened by Bridges of Truth, a collaboration of Syrian civil society organizations and ICTJ, the dialogues captured a wide spectrum of perspectives and experiences and provided va...

This report summarizes the key issues discussed at the fourth African Union-European Union experts’ seminar on transitional justice. Convened by ICTJ in Brussels in June 2024, the seminar brought together experts from the two regions to share experiences and to explore how transitiona...

This report explores pathways for transitional justice in Yemen, emphasizing victims’ experiences, political dynamics, and existing justice mechanisms. It examines national and local efforts, including mediation and reconciliation initiatives, and highlights the role of Yemeni civil s...

This report provides an analysis of international economic sanctions from a transitional justice perspective. It considers the role that sanctions may play in advancing or hindering accountability, redress, and prevention in response to massive and serious human rights violations. The...

Drawing from data and testimonies of Syrians both inside the country and in the diaspora collected by civil society organizations, this report looks at the justice needs of Syrian victims of human rights violations in the context of ongoing debates on refugee returns. It critically ex...

Customary justice is the primary way in which most communities in South Sudan resolve disputes. Its ability, however, to deal with massive human rights violations is limited due to the complexity of intercommunal violence and a lack of clarity on its proper role. This report contends ...

This report serves as practical guide for those working in truth commissions and fact-finding bodies to convert large amounts of data and information into a final report. The manual draws on real life experiences from multiple truth commissions and includes extracts and examples from ...

The field of transitional justice is increasingly recognizing the relevance of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) in contexts of massive human rights violations. Despite growing advocacy and awareness at the global policy level, however, the field lacks a systematic approa...

This research report offers guidance on the application of a restorative justice framework in contexts of massive human rights violations, including its advantages and challenges. Based on the experiences of Colombia, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, and the Philippines, the study examines how ...

As part of its mandate, Colombia's Commission for the Clarification of Truth carried out 68 processes of acknowledgment led or supported by a specialized team. These processes sought to acknowledge victims and the harms they suffered, as well as individual or collective responsibiliti...

What does the obligation to provide reparations mean when serious human rights violations are at issue? This report explores the evolving interpretation of the right to reparation in international law and jurisprudence and how domestic courts have provided judicial reparations at the ...

This comparative study examines strategies used by local actors to help operationalize reparations for victims of widespread human rights violations, while highlighting the synergies between these efforts and sustainable development. It is based on the fieldwork of ICTJ and its partne...

This study presents reflections on the peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia between 2003 and 2006. It seeks to contribute to strategies for negotiating with or subduing illegal armed groups, as well as for the general pursu...

International policymakers recognize that transitional justice is an important component of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially in countries affected by systemic violence, repression, and marginalization. Yet responses to massive human right violations often remain...

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...

ICTJ is more than two decades old. At the time it was established, many of those who contributed to transitions in Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, South Africa, and the former Yugoslavia saw the value of a specialized organization that could draw from diverse national experiences to prov...

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 ...

George Floyd’s death reignited existing anger over American society’s deep and festering racial wounds. His death triggered significant social uprisings that have challenged the methods of policing that have emerged over the course of several decades. With a growing awareness of polic...

This report presents findings from research on the needs and expectations of survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in The Gambia. Based on focus group discussions with survivors and other stakeholders, it analyses obstacles to, as well as opportunities to improve, survivors’ a...

This report presents findings from a study conducted by ICTJ, the Women’s Advocacy Network, and the Global Survivors Fund to assess the reparative justice needs of victims of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) in Uganda. The study is based on interviews and focus group discussion...

At a time when truth-seeking and reparations initiatives are taking hold across the United States, this report offers reflections from various civil society-led truth-seeking processes. Drawing on case studies from the United States, Colombia, Scotland, and West Papua, the report iden...

This study explores specialized units established in 23 countries to investigate and prosecute serious international crimes. Notwithstanding the challenges faced by these units, the study concludes that countries with a specialized institutional approach are considerably more successf...

Enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention devastate victims and all those who love them. This guide takes an unsparing look at the harsh realities that Syrian victims of these crimes face and offers guidance on what they and others can do to help. It is the product of the Bridges...

This study explores a transitional justice approach to the dilemma of foreign fighters in violent conflict. Such an approach can help center human rights in comprehensive responses to foreign fighters, and shift the current focus from security and punishment to justice and long-term p...

This study analyzes how transitional justice in Sierra Leone has contributed to prevention by responding to the grievances of those harmed by violations, reducing exclusion, addressing through institutional reforms the causes of past violence, and catalyzing long-term change. While tr...

This report examines the contribution of transitional justice to prevention in the Philippines, as well as the limits of this contribution due to the failure to comprehensively address and learn from the past and undertake structural changes. While reparations, truth telling, and inst...

This study examines the preventive effect of transitional justice in Peru in the aftermath of internal conflict and authoritarianism, focusing on the violence’s root causes and the differentiated impact on victims and affected communities. It contends that while transitional justice h...

This study examines how transitional justice measures in Morocco have helped prevent state violence repression and social and economic exclusion. These measures included the Equity and Reconciliation Commission, which diagnosed some historical wrongdoings and called for reform to prev...

This report examines the preventive impact of transitional justice mechanisms in Colombia before the 2016 peace agreement. It finds that these measures have contributed to prevention by strengthening institutional responses to rights violations, shaping the public agenda, developing a...

This report summarizes the findings of an ICTJ research project on the contribution of transitional justice to prevention. Drawing from five country case studies, it contends that addressing the past can help to prevent the recurrence not only of human rights violations but also viole...

Providing justice to victims of human rights abuses in fragile contexts such as the Central African Republic (CAR) is challenging for reasons related not only to the state’s stability, capacity, and political will, but also socioeconomic inequality in the country. This research report...

Because transitional justice processes are complex, politically contested, and not necessarily linear, they present unique theoretical and practical challenges for measuring their results. This report seeks to improve monitoring and evaluation practices and support evidence-based proc...

Invoking the principle of universal jurisdiction opens the door to the possibility of some accountability in circumstances where justice is not possible in countries where the crimes took place. This study considers the challenges facing the exercise of universal jurisdiction and asse...

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 confli...

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 eme...

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 ...

This report examines the police vetting in Kenya that was part of a broader reform in response to the 2007-2008 post-election violence, focusing on why civil society became disillusioned with the initiative. Drawing on interviews with civil society representatives and former members o...

In most cases, to be imprisoned in Syria is to disappear. Tens of thousands of people, if not more, have been unlawfully taken prisoner or held incommunicado in the context of the Syrian conflict. This policy paper examines the dark reality of detentions in Syria, its impact...

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...

This guide is designed to engage young people who are interested in or are working on transitional justice issues in their communities. Intended to serve primarily as a training tool, it provides basic information about transitional justice and related principles and offers tips and s...

Prosecution guidelines provide benchmarks for decision making and act as a shield for prosecutors in the face of undue influence, pressure, or interference. Prosecutors pursuing sensitive cases, such as those involving mass atrocities, ought to do so by applying binding, objective, fa...

This study, carried out in partnership with Aulas de Paz and Universidad Santo Tomás, explores experiences of acknowledgment of responsibility under Colombia’s Justice and Peace Law. Drawing on interviews with victims, former combatants, and judicial officials, it identifies key lesso...

This report of the Working Group on Transitional Justice and SDG16+ articulates the contributions of transitional justice to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 16 on peace, justice, and inclusion, but also related goals on gender and inequality. The report...

This report analyzes the macro-criminality approach that was taken in Colombia’s Justice and Peace process and draws key lessons for the Special Jurisdiction for Peace. It examines how Law 1592 of 2012 and other regulatory instruments sought to move beyond a case-by-case method, prior...

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 report aims to help practitioners in the transitional justice field to understand the experience of establishing and operating hybrid courts and to address some common assumptions about these entities. To do so, it looks at hybrid or mixed courts in practice, drawing on experienc...