Resource Library

In Congo over the past decade, demands for justice have been largely unmet in peace negotiations: impunity for the worst crimes is entrenched, and the root causes of the conflict remain unaddressed. As the European Union, often through the European Union Special Representatives (EUSRs...

Many experts—including development agencies—are trying to improve donor support to democratic governance in fragile and conflict-affected countries. Yet aid institutions tend to promote better governance by promoting capacity in executive government, representation and accountability ...

ICTJ Vice President Paul Seils interviewed South African judge and human rights activist Albie Sachs.

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...

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 ...

Growing up in Ras el Nabeh, a lively neighborhood in the heart of Beirut, was tough and dangerous in the early 1980s, as it was part of the Green Line –a maze of abandoned streets inhabited by weeds turned into a frontline that vertically divided Christian East Beirut from Muslim West B...

Founding affidavit from Hugo van der Merwe of ICTJ regarding case before North Gauteng High Court of South Africa.

Applicants apply to the Supreme Court of Appeal against the judgment regarding North Gauteng High Court, Pretoria.

South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique and Namibia have all experienced massive violations of human rights in the recent past. Apart from Zimbabwe, where a political crisis continues, all of these states have further seen the end of major conflicts within the last two decades. Onl...

As the Special Court for Sierra Leone formally ended its work on December 2, 2013, a new museum opened on the former premises of the court, dedicated to peace. The SCSL was a hybrid criminal court, established jointly by the UN and Sierra Leone to prosecute perpetrators of serious crim...

This paper weighs the possible modes and competing policy objectives of punishing FARC members for serious crimes in the context of Colombia’s ongoing peace negotiations. It argues that punishment has to occur in a way that does not damage one of the underlying objectives of the peace...

President Obama’s long-awaited plan to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan is meant to include a number of benchmarks aimed at stabilizing Afghanistan as part of an overall strategy to defeat or contain Taliban/al-Qaeda extremists.

Trials re-enact periods of violence and state repression in order to submit them to authoritative judgment. The legal judgment is, however, only one aspect of such trials, which have broader educational and transformative goals. The question posed in this paper is whether or not trial...

According to the Rome Statute, the International Criminal Court (ICC) will investigate and prosecute where States are “unwilling or unable genuinely” to do so.

Although in force only recently, the Rome Statute has changed many of the assumptions of earlier peace versus justice debates, at least for States Parties.

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...

Indigenous peoples are among those most affected by contemporary conflict. The resource-rich territories they occupy are coveted by powerful, often violent groups. Their identity is perceived with mistrust, sometimes with hate. Indigenous communities live at a precarious intersection ...