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1. Civil Society-Led Truth-Seeking Initiatives: Expanding Opportunities for Acknowledgment and Redress

Author:
Eduardo González Cueva, Jill Williams, and Félix Reátegui Carrillo
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
Abstract:
This study reviews civil society-led truth-seeking initiatives in different regions of the world drawing on their experiences, methodologies, and contributions. It identifies lessons learned and best practices and presents practical options for activists considering similar endeavors. The report is inspired by and builds on the work of transitional justice practitioners, including at ICTJ, who deploy wide-ranging modalities to advance truth seeking, including oral history, artwork, theatrical productions, reenactments, museum exhibits, memorials, films, and documentation projects. The right to the truth is a fundamental component of redress for victims of massive human rights violations. Institutional silence, suppression of complaints, and refusal to acknowledge such violations further perpetuates them by protecting and enabling those responsible. In many contexts, government-supported truth commissions are not possible. Moreover, total reliance on state-sanctioned formats can result in one-size-fits-all approaches to truth seeking, devoid of creativity or potential. In the absence of political will, civil society actors have responded to demands for truth by devising and carrying out truth-seeking efforts independently, using a wide array of tools and methods. Civil society-led truth-seeking initiatives provide a practical channel by which communities can respond to demands for redress when the state fails to deliver on its obligations to protect victims’ rights. While truth-seeking initiatives can take many forms, they generally share three main objectives: (1) establish the facts about human rights violations that remain disputed or denied and validate different interpretations and analyses of those facts; (2) protect, acknowledge, and empower victims and survivors; and (3) inform public policy, promote institutional reform, and contribute to social and political transformation. Through an examination of case studies from the United States, Colombia, Scotland, and West Papua, the report highlights common considerations and procedural questions that civil society groups should consider when designing and implementing a truth-seeking mechanism. These considerations can help inspire and guide civil society actors as they lead truth-seeking efforts in the United States and around the world.
Topic:
Reform, Transitional Justice, Youth, Criminal Justice, Memory, Engagement, Reparations, Gender, Atrocity Prevention, and Truth and Reconciliation
Political Geography:
Europe, Asia, Colombia, South America, North America, and United States of America

2. How to Destroy an Investigation from the Inside: Ayotzinapa and the Legacies of Impunity

Author:
John Gibler
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
Abstract:
Is the Mexican government's dubious new evidence part of another “historical truth?”
Topic:
Corruption, Government, History, Impunity, Memory, and Extrajudicial Killings
Political Geography:
Latin America, North America, and Mexico

3. Creating More Inclusive Public Spaces: Structural Racism, Confederate Memorials, and Building for the Future

Author:
PRRI Staff
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
PRRI: Public Religion Research Institute
Abstract:
Across the United States over the past decade, there have been heated discussions about Confederate statues and memorials in public spaces. Some cities have removed statues or renamed public spaces memorializing the Confederacy and Confederate leaders, while others remain embroiled in debate. This survey, conducted jointly by PRRI and E Pluribus Unum, examines the role of race and racism in how Americans view Confederate monuments, as well as American attitudes toward creating making public spaces more inclusive.
Topic:
Space, Memory, Racism, and Public Investment
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4. The Force of the Police: An Analysis of Police Violence Based on Experience in the United States and the Imperative to Restore Legitimacy

Author:
Robert Cornelli
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
Abstract:
Egon Bittner, an early scholar of policing, noted that one of the peculiarities of the institution of the police is that it swings into action in response to “something that ought not to be happening and about which someone had better do something now.” The situations in which the police are called on to act are often emergencies, and it is at junctures such as these that, paradoxically, police officers sometimes take actions that ought not to happen. This is precisely what occurred in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020, when George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was stopped by the police and subsequently killed by an officer who knelt on his neck for over nine minutes, ignoring his frequent pleas for help. The words he spoke as he suffocated under the officer’s knee—"I can’t breathe”—became an instant rallying cry for the protest movement that started in Minneapolis and quickly reverberated throughout the United States and the world. Floyd’s death reignited existing anger over American society’s deep and festering racial wounds. The litany of historical abuses in the United States is indeed long. His death also triggered significant social uprisings that have challenged the methods of policing that have emerged over the course of several decades. These uprisings have attributed greater responsibility to the police than in the past, for their perpetuation of stereotypes and discrimination. The time for an in-depth rethinking of the legitimacy of law enforcement bodies in the United States is ripe, and not only as a result of the new political approach ushered in by President Joe Biden and the greater awareness of police brutality triggered by demands of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Topic:
Law Enforcement, Reform, Criminal Justice, Memory, Institutions, Police, Truth, Violence Prevention, and Youth Engagement
Political Geography:
Colombia, South America, North America, Peru, Guatemala, and United States of America

5. 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

6. The Color of Justice: Transitional Justice and the Legacy of Slavery and Racism in the United States

Author:
Virginie Ladisch and Anna Myriam Roccatello
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
Abstract:
This briefing paper makes the case for applying transitional justice approaches to dismantle systemic racism in the United States. The need to connect the dots between past and present abuses and affirm the humanity and dignity of Black people are central to all efforts to acknowledge victims and the violations they suffered, challenge the dominant historical narrative, repair harms, and reform broken systems. While the truth of the United States’ legacy of slavery and racism and its connections to present-day injustices are well documented in scholarly materials, they have not been acknowledged by the government or adequately integrated into the country’s collective narrative. Overcoming the dehumanization associated with persistent racial and socioeconomic subjugation requires a conscious and explicit government effort to denounce it and inform all citizens about how it occurred throughout US history. This includes acknowledgment and reparations. Reforms are also desperately needed in the criminal justice system, voting, housing, education, and health care. Drawing on comparative examples, this briefing argues that any meaningful changes to laws and policies or institutional reforms must be grounded in a recognition and understanding of the society’s past atrocities and its connection to present-day injustices, grievances, and violence. The United States finds itself in a moment of reckoning, as protests and public demands crack open the door to broader discussions on how to unravel the country’s legacies of slavery and white supremacy and reform institutions such the police and the criminal justice system. It should look to and learn from other countries that have undertaken efforts to address systemic human rights violations, provide reparations, and advance reforms. It is now time for the United States to apply transitional justice approaches domestically to at last reckon with its legacy of slavery and racism and build a more just future for the country and all its citizens.
Topic:
Human Rights, Reform, Slavery, Transitional Justice, Criminal Justice, Memory, Institutions, Racism, and Truth and Reconciliation
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

7. 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

8. The Rwandan Genocide Revisited

Author:
Robert E. Gribbin
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Twenty-five years ago, in April 1994, the havoc of genocide visited Rwanda. In a three-month-long paroxysm of violence, almost a million souls died. The country was devastated, the remaining population cowed, government non-existent, and the economy in shambles. Twenty-five years ago, in April 1994, the havoc of genocide visited Rwanda. In a three-month-long paroxysm of violence, almost a million souls died. The country was devastated, the remaining population cowed, government non-existent, and the economy in shambles.
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, Ethnic Conflict, Genocide, Politics, History, Peacekeeping, Refugees, and Memory
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, Tanzania, North America, Rwanda, Burundi, Central African Republic, United States of America, and Zaire

9. Artist Q&A

Author:
Vicki Valosik and Helen Zughaib
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
Helen Zughaib, currently based in Washington D.C., is known for her colorful gouache works that emphasize hope and human dignity, even while depicting themes of mass displacement, political upheaval, and war. Born in Beirut but forced to evacuate during the 1975 civil war, Zughaib spent much of her life in Europe and other parts of the Middle East before coming to the United States to earn her BFA at Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. Her art has been exhibited at museums, galleries, embassies, and in private collections around the world, including at the White House, the Library of Congress, and the World Bank. Zughaib has served as a U.S. State Department Cultural Envoy to Europe and the Middle East and was recently awarded a grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. In November, she gave a talk at CCAS on her visual documentation of the Arab Spring, after which she shared the following reflections on her work.
Topic:
Arts, Culture, Arab Spring, and Memory
Political Geography:
Middle East, United States of America, North America, Washington, and D.C.

10. Hiroshima to The Hague

Author:
Charles McClean and Sheila A. Smith
Publication Date:
09-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Pacific Forum
Abstract:
President Obama and Prime Minister Abe traveled to Hiroshima, where Obama took the opportunity to speak of the devastating consequences of war in the nuclear era. The summer months that followed were full of politics, with an Upper House election in Japan in July and the Republican and Democratic Party conventions in the US kicking off the general election campaign for president. The Obama administration continued to work toward congressional passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership at the end of the year. With less political contention but growing skepticism over Washington’s ability to ratify the agreement, the Abe Cabinet decided to postpone Diet discussions on the topic until after its election. Regional relations continue to shape the US-Japan alliance agenda with Chinese maritime activity in the East China Sea and South China Sea and ongoing North Korean provocations garnering the most attention. The summer months that followed were full of politics, with an Upper House election in Japan in July and the Republican and Democratic Party conventions in the US kicking off the general election campaign for president. The Republican nominee, Donald Trump, continued to take aim at trade deals and US alliances, but the Democratic Party had its “anti-trade” moment when its convention took aim at the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the trade pact concluded by 12 Pacific nations. The Obama administration continued to work toward a Congressional vote in the lame duck session at the end of the year. With less political contention but growing skepticism over Washington’s ability to ratify the agreement, the Abe Cabinet decided that it would postpone Diet discussions until after its election. Regional relations continue to shape the US-Japan alliance agenda. In July, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea Tribunal announced its arbitration ruling in a case brought by the Philippines on Chinese behavior in the South China Sea. Beijing was quick to condemn the ruling, but its neighbors in Asia largely welcomed it. In August, Chinese fishing vessels inundated the waters near the Senkaku Islands, prompting Japan’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Sugiyama Shinsuke to call in Chinese Ambassador Cheng Yonghua for a harsh protest. A diplomatic opening came when Foreign Minister Wang Yi traveled to Tokyo on Aug. 24 for a trilateral meeting with the foreign ministers of Japan and the ROK, the first trilateral meeting held in Japan in 11 years. North Korea heralded this Japan-ROK-PRC meeting by testing a ballistic missile launch from a submarine. Pyongyang yet again interrupted regional diplomacy when it launched three missiles into the Sea of Japan during the G20 meeting hosted by Beijing, prompting renewed UN condemnation of North Korea and a hasty set of meetings between the leaders of Japan, South Korea, and the US. A full agenda of Asian multilateral meetings ended the summer, offering plenty of opportunity for diplomacy. For this summer, at least, there seems little reason to believe that diplomacy alone can bridge the growing differences over how to resolve the region’s growing security tensions.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Regional Cooperation, Memory, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia, North America, and United States of America