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1. Gearing Up the Fight Against Impunity: Dedicated Investigative and Prosecutorial Capacities

Author:
Howard Varney and Katarzyna Zdunczky
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
Abstract:
Holding perpetrators to account for the worst crimes known to humanity is one of the most important responsibilities of the community of nations in the 21st century. Notwithstanding the appalling nature of atrocity crimes, most perpetrators do not face justice. Specialized investigative and prosecutorial units, however, offer a ray of hope in this otherwise bleak justice landscape. Such units now operate in several countries around the world, including Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, and Germany. This report, which was prepared jointly by ICTJ and the Foundation for Human Rights emerges from efforts to persuade the South African government to create a dedicated capacity to investigate and prosecute apartheid-era crimes, which have been long neglected. The report considers ways of gearing up the fight against impunity for serious international crimes and crimes of the past. It compares countries that leave atrocity crimes to the general administration of justice and those that adopt a specialized or dedicated approach. Specialized prosecutorial and investigative capacities are entities that focus exclusively on a particular category of crimes. While specialized units vary in size, structure, staffing, and operations, innovations such as prosecution-led investigations and bringing multi-disciplinary skills under one roof, make them considerably more effective than a generalized approach. The report provides a high-level audit of specialized units in 23 countries. It considers different models of domestic dedicated investigative and prosecutorial approaches and analyses their track records. Eleven case studies contrast countries with specialized units and those without. The report examines certain features that characterize specialized units, including their structure, composition, operations, and relationships with civil society and other entities. It analyzes the main challenges faced by the units including political dynamics, accessing evidence, and victim support. The report includes an overview of recent efforts by various specialized units to deliver criminal accountability for serious crimes committed in Syria. It concludes with recommendations on how to make specialized units more effective.
Topic:
International Law, Reform, Criminal Justice, Accountability, and Atrocity Prevention
Political Geography:
Uganda, Kenya, Africa, Europe, Middle East, Argentina, South America, Balkans, North Africa, Syria, Tunisia, Peru, and South Sudan

2. Reparations for Victims of the Marikana Masssacre

Author:
Hugo van der Merwe, Jordi Vives-Gabriel, and Malose Langa
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR)
Abstract:
This policy brief presents a summary assessment of the progress made in providing redress for victims of the Marikana Massacre,1 when 34 striking miners were killed by the South African Police Service (SAPS) in 2012 and ten people were killed in the conflict that led up to it. In the ten years since the massacre, there has been meagre progress in addressing its consequences. Direct victims and their relatives have not received full reparations, the community of Marikana remains underdeveloped and deeply divided, and the apartheid legacy of the mining sector in South Africa remains an unresolved wound in the national psyche. An integrated approach is required to address both the systemic injustices and the specific legacies of the Marikana Massacre, while being clear about the specific responsibilities of all the stakeholders. This policy brief spells out key facts about the events, outlines what progress that has been made in the last ten years in seeking truth, justice and reconciliation, and spells out recommendations for state, corporate and civil society actors on the way forward.
Topic:
Torture, Criminal Justice, State Violence, Police, and Reparations
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa

3. The Marikana Massacre: Repair and Corporate Accountability 10 Years On

Author:
Malose Langa, Hugo van der Merwe, Modiege Merafe, and Jordi Vives-Gabriel
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR)
Abstract:
This report focuses on the process of corporate redress in response to the Marikana Massacre, which occurred on 16 August 2012. The study sought to examine the various forms of reparations that have been provided to victims by the mining company and to understand this process in the context of other processes of justice and repair to address the consequences of conflict and violence. As such, this report forms part of a broader international study on the role of corporate actors in transitional justice processes.1 The report provides a brief description of the events in Marikana against the backdrop of the history of mining in apartheid South Africa and the subsequent transition to democracy. It frames the causes of the massacre as embedded in the unresolved transition and South Africa’s failure to confront the legacy of exploitation and repression in the mining sector. It also seeks to unpack the various initiatives undertaken in response to the massacre, focusing particularly on the measures to address the needs of injured and arrested mineworkers as well as the families of those who were killed.
Topic:
Torture, Criminal Justice, State Violence, Police, Reconciliation, and Corporate Accountability
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa

4. Indigenous restorative justice mechanisms as a tool for transitional justice in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Author:
Patrick Bashizi Bashige Murhula
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
The United Nations Mapping Report on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a powerful reminder of the gravity of the crimes committed in this country. This report found that the period between March 1993 and June 2003 is probably one of the most tragic chapters in the recent history of the DRC. A string of major political crises, wars and multiple ethnic and regional conflicts killed millions of people. However, since the publication of this report there has been a shocking lack of justice for the victims because the Congolese justice system has been ineffective in prosecuting the perpetrators. This article is a valuable contribution to ending impunity in that it proposes an alternative approach to justice. This is based on restorative values and principles, such as the Baraza indigenous restorative justice mechanism. This provides justice to victims, restores peace and reconciliation in the region and, most importantly, holds perpetrators accountable for the crimes and human rights violations they have committed.
Topic:
United Nations, Transitional Justice, Criminal Justice, Indigenous, and Restorative Justice
Political Geography:
Africa and Democratic Republic of Congo

5. Leaving Behind the Worst of the Past: Transitional Justice and Prevention in Sierra Leone

Author:
Ibrahim Bangura
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
Abstract:
From 1991 to 2002, Sierra Leone experienced a destructive civil war that fomented widespread violence and abuse. To address both the causes and consequences of the war, the country implemented criminal prosecution, a truth commission, a limited reparations program, institutional reforms, and local reconciliation practices. Nearly two decades after the end of the war, the country has avoided the recurrence of violent conflict, made substantial socioeconomic progress, and improved its democratic governance. This study analyzes how transitional justice in Sierra Leone has contributed to prevention through accountability and redress measures that addressed the grievances of those who were harmed by human rights violations and reduced the exclusion associated with the violence. Institutional and other reforms also helped to address the causes of the past violence and catalyze long-term change. At the same time, however, these contributions were limited in terms of reach and implementation. Despite these achievements, many of the civil war’s root causes—including poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, and a lack of agency among and recognition of ordinary people—remain unaddressed, and many of its consequences unredressed. The marginalization of young people, a key factor in the onset of the war, continues to be a societal problem. At the political level, ethno-regional-based approaches have deepened divisions and ethnic tension and increased the risk of instability. While transitional justice has helped Sierra Leone to avoid the recurrence of the worst of its recent past, a more comprehensive approach to sustainable peace and development is needed to address the historical legacies of the conflict and meet the current challenges. This approach will demand enormous political engagement, willpower, and resources, as well as community-based mobilization. It will also require following through on transitional justice processes, such as fully implementing the truth commission’s recommendations, and a range of additional political, social, and economic measures.
Topic:
Reform, Youth, Criminal Justice, Memory, Institutions, Engagement, Reparations, and Truth and Reconciliation
Political Geography:
Africa and Sierra Leone

6. Accountability in Policing COVID-19: Lessons from the Field

Author:
Anna Myriam Roccatello and Mohamed Suma
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
Abstract:
As countries around the world roll out their COVID-19 vaccination programs and gradually reopen their economies and borders, the coronavirus continues to ravage vulnerable communities. Moreover, these same communities have borne the brunt of the economic disruption caused by the pandemic, which decimated livelihoods, increased poverty, and exacerbated inequalities in many countries. Early in the pandemic, countries rushed to shut their borders and impose emergency measures, such as curfews, travel restrictions, and community lockdowns. States deployed security forces to enforce these measures, some of which resulted in widespread human rights violations, including torture, killings, and intimidation of persons perceived as failing to comply with their orders. Colombia, Kenya, Lebanon, and Uganda—all countries where ICTJ works—are among those whose security agencies weaponized their powers under these emergency measures and often used brutal means to keep people off the streets. While constitutional police forces committed the bulk of these abuses, a growing number of paramilitaries, citizen vigilantes, and other nonstate forces have also committed human rights violations while enforcing the emergency measures. However, the COVID-19 pandemic underscores states' obligation to protect the inherent right to life and the subsequent right to health. Moreover, national and international human rights laws allow states to temporarily suspend certain rights and invoke special powers that would be considered an infringement of civil liberties in normal situations. Thus, the suspension of those rights is justified by the need to protect the collective good. This paper analyzes the emerging trends of draconian regular policing and vigilante policing during the pandemic in Colombia, Kenya, Lebanon, and Uganda. The paper also describes how armed nonstate groups have come to exercise control in communities where there is no government presence to enforce emergency lockdown and other measures, with little regard for the principles of proportionality and non-discrimination. In all contexts, since the outbreak of the COVID-19, regular police and paramilitary forces have increased their powers, which they have abused extensively. As a result, some policing practices have become deadlier than the virus itself and have exposed the profound frailties of democratic governance.
Topic:
Reform, Criminal Justice, Crisis Management, Institutions, Police, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Uganda, Kenya, Africa, Middle East, Colombia, South America, and Lebanon

7. A Transitional Justice Approach to Foreign Fighters

Author:
Cristian Correa
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
Abstract:
This research study examines the value of a transitional justice approach to the issue of foreign fighters in violent conflict. A transitional justice approach addresses the massive and serious human rights violations that are committed in conflicts involving significant numbers of people who traveled from another state to participate in them. Such an approach is based on the shared responsibility of states to meet their obligations derived from international human rights law and international humanitarian law. It is one that can help to center human rights considerations in responses to foreign fighters, thereby shifting the focus from security and punishment to justice and prevention. Transitional justice can help to develop a more comprehensive and coordinated set of responses to gross violations that account for the roles and responsibilities of a range of actors. In addition to providing justice to victims, transitional justice can help prevent the recurrence of the violence and abuse in which foreign fighters are often involved. A transitional justice approach includes interventions that promote accountability, truth, reparation, rehabilitation, reintegration, memory, and reform. These measures can be implemented in countries of origin and countries in or emerging from conflict. A transitional justice approach to requires dealing not just with foreign fighters themselves but with all of the abuses committed as part of the broader conflict or violence. The challenges that such an approach faces include the phenomenon’s transnational dynamic and the association of foreign fighters with contexts of terrorism and violent extremism. The report makes specific recommendations to countries of origin, countries in conflict, and the international community.
Topic:
Reform, Transitional Justice, Youth, Criminal Justice, Institutions, Engagement, Foreign Fighters, and Gender
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Kenya, Africa, Iraq, Europe, Middle East, Balkans, Syria, and Asia-Pacific

8. Measuring Results and Monitoring Progress of Transitional Justice Processes

Author:
Mateo Porciuncula
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
Abstract:
Transitional justice processes are complex, politically contested, and not necessarily linear. Because of this, they present unique theoretical and practical challenges for measuring results, which include challenges for gathering data, registering unintended outcomes, reporting progress, providing feedback to interventions, and extracting useful information to establish impact or counterfactuals. Based on a desk research and a series of discussions with practitioners, policymakers, and academics, this report considers the following: The different roles monitoring and evaluation systems can play and the questions they can answer at different stages of a transitional justice process. This report recommends conducting assessments early on to inform design and to build feedback loops into ongoing processes. Key features of transitional justice processes, including their complexity, their political nature, and the difficult contexts where they are usually implemented. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods and designing monitoring and evaluation approaches that allow for capturing rich contextual data and unexpected results. Power dynamics, exclusion, and language, particularly in fragile contexts and when dealing with vulnerable populations. Monitoring and evaluation approaches that are conflict sensitive, victim centered, and participatory. The Sustainable Development Agenda as a framework for measuring results of transitional justice. While a politically legitimate and useful conceptual framework, there is room for improvement as current indicators are not best suited to contexts where a large proportion of the population has experienced human right abuses. Overall, stakeholders in transitional justice should take a “user-centered” approach to measuring progress and results, one that puts the people that a process is meant to serve at the center. In doing so, they can focus on collecting what matters, establishing feedback loops, and learning from and continually improving their interventions.
Topic:
Reform, Transitional Justice, Youth, Criminal Justice, Memory, Institutions, Gender, and Truth and Reconciliation
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Middle East, Asia, South America, and North America

9. ‘A Drop of Water on a Hot Stone:’ Justice for Victims in the Central African Republic

Author:
Rim El Gantri and Arnaud Yaliki
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
Abstract:
The Central African Republic (CAR) has endured six decades of violent conflict, which has fractured the country and weakened the state’s ability to provide not only justice but also basic services. Victims of human rights violations, especially those outside the capital Bangui, often belong to profoundly marginalized communities. Their victimhood is thus aggravated by daily struggles of exclusion, inequality, and the absence of alternatives. This research report examines the notion of justice and its feasibility from the perspective of a victim-centered approach in a context of profound fragility and extreme poverty. The first section of the report gives an overview of the contextual challenges to providing justice to victims, including the ongoing violent conflict and widespread human rights violations, polarization, lack of inclusion, social norms, and the exclusion of young people from decision-making processes. These obstacles, which deepen the justice gap, are generally not taken into consideration when designing justice measures and initiatives. The second section describes existing justice initiatives and those currently being established in CAR, including judicial and non-judicial mechanisms and those administered by national and international bodies. However, high operating costs, dysfunction, corruption, and centralization of services in the capital severely tend to limit the ability of these initiatives to deliver justice to victims. The third section discusses victims’ demands and aspirations for justice based on their experiences and priorities. It sheds light on the need for meaningful participation of victims, members of marginalized communities, and civil society representatives, among others, in justice initiatives in order to ensure their legitimacy and facilitate their implementation. Garnering such broad participation requires engaging, unifying, and impactful communication and outreach strategies. The report concludes with a set of conclusions and recommendations that acknowledge the challenges in providing justice to victims in a fragile context like CAR and highlight innovative transitional justice strategies in which victims are the cornerstone.
Topic:
Reform, Youth, Criminal Justice, Memory, Institutions, Engagement, Reparations, and Truth and Reconciliation
Political Geography:
Africa and Central African Republic

10. Transitional Justice and Prevention: Summary Findings from Five Country Case Studies

Author:
Roger Duthie
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
Abstract:
This report summarizes the findings of an ICTJ research project exploring the role that transitional justice can play in preventing both massive and serious violations of human rights as well as violence and violent conflict more broadly. Its conclusions are drawn from case studies of five countries—Colombia, Morocco, Peru, the Philippines, and Sierra Leone—representing a range of complex contexts in which societies are grappling with violent conflicts, repressive governments, or acute inequality. It argues that transitional justice should be an integral element of conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and sustainable development. The report contends that transitional justice can contribute to prevention by: (1) addressing the exclusion and other harms that victims experience due to human rights violations they suffered; (2) addressing the exclusion and related injustices that communities and social groups face as a result of targeted violations and structural marginalization; (3) strengthening the rule of law and making it more inclusive; and (4) catalyzing the reform of institutions and laws that have perpetuated violence and discrimination as a means to exclude marginalized groups. The report also identifies a number of limitations to the preventive impact of transitional justice, including: (1) tensions that can exist between justice and prevention initiatives, especially in the short term; (2) justice processes that may be seen to be insufficiently participatory or even exclusionary themselves; (3) a lack of implementation of measures and reforms that are designed or recommended; and (4) contextual factors such political dynamics, security concerns, and the absence of broader structural change. The report concludes that applying a prevention lens to transitional justice does not fundamentally change how the field is understood, but it does have broad policy implications. First, fostering inclusion should be a primary objective of both the outcomes and the design of transitional justice mechanisms. Second, assessing the preventive role of transitional justice requires a long-term approach to inclusion and reform as these involve changes to social relationships, institutions, and structures. Third, prevention requires a society to confront both the root causes and consequences of injustice, and transitional justice processes can contribute greatly in this regard. However, they alone are not enough.
Topic:
Reform, Transitional Justice, Criminal Justice, Memory, Institutions, Reparations, and Truth and Reconciliation
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, Asia, South America, North Africa, North America, Sierra Leone, Morocco, Peru, and Oceania