More than six years after the formal end of the armed conflict between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the government of Uganda, thousands of victims are still waiting for concrete measures to address the serious human rights violations they suffered.

A transitional justice policy has long been discussed in Uganda, but no real measures have yet been put in place to deal with the past. Some developments, particularly concerning reparations, are now raising some hopes for victims’ redress.

We talked to Fernando Travesí, ICTJ Deputy Program Director, upon his return from Uganda. In this interview with Hannah Dunphy, Travesí expresses concern for the institutional inability to materialize the theoretical debate into concrete measures, despite the strong demands for truth and redress from civil society.

Travesí is concerned about the long time it is taking the Ugandan government to pass a transitional justice policy that has already gone through five different drafts.

“Significant time has passed,” says Travesí. “Transitional Justice in Uganda is spinning off in a theoretical, abstract debate which doesn’t bring anything concrete to the society or the victims."

During his mission in Uganda, Travesí met with civil society and international organizations, as well as government representatives. He highlights the strong claims victims expressed: “At this stage, truth and concrete measures of reparations are more important for the victims.”

Travesí fears that the upcoming presidential elections in 2016 might affect the chances for the government to commit to the passing and implementation of transitional justice measures. “If transitional justice makes its way to the political agenda it might be an opportunity,” he said, “but there’s a bit of a fatigue on the transitional justice debate, and maybe we are losing the momentum because nothing concrete has been delivered.”

Photo: Jinja Market, Uganda, 2005, via Flickr

The recent arrest of Gerry Adams, the president of the political party Sinn Féin, over his alleged connection to the abduction and murder of a widow in Belfast in 1972 has renewed intense interest over truth and accountability in Northern Ireland.

In 1998, Northern Ireland’s political parties along with the UK and Irish governments entered agreements (known as the Good Friday Agreement) to put an end to the violent three-decade confrontation between those in favor to reunify Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland and those who defend its belonging to the United Kingdom. Fifteen years later, Adams’ arrest has brought about one of the most delicate moments of the peace process, revealing an urgent need to deal with the unaddressed legacy of human rights abuses.

We spoke to Paul Seils, ICTJ’s vice president, who has just returned from a mission to Northern Ireland. In this interview with ICTJ’s Hannah Dunphy, Seils analyzes the most sensitive issues at stake in the region, such as how to deal with the past in a constructive way, and the validity of the Haass and O’Sullivan proposals on outstanding issues of the peace process.

Seils says that the situation in Northern Ireland has slipped towards crisis in the last several months, when the executive parties were unable to reach an agreement over proposals addressing recent tensions including flying of flags, parades, and dealing with the past. While it appears that the Nationalist and Republicans were prepared to accept the Haass and O’Sullivan proposals in totality, the Unionist parties were not. Nonetheless, says Seils, “The Haass and O’Sullivan proposals are the most significant, if not the only game in town for dealing with past [in Northern Ireland].”

In his conversations with civil society organizations, Seils has noticed a shift in the approach on how to deal with the past: “One of the parties has moved from not focusing on dealing with the past at all to a much more focused debate on what does reconciliation really mean, how do we move forward, what kind of acknowledgment is necessary – and that’s a fairly significant change.”

Seils explained why this is such a delicate moment for Northern Ireland: “The good will and positive energy of the peace process to some extent has got to as far as it can take the process, and the things that have not been dealt with are now becoming much more obvious problems. Dealing with the past is the biggest issue.”

For ICTJ’s vice president, the first step in the discussion in Northern Ireland is to figure out if parties can agree to look at the Haass and O’Sullivan proposals regarding issues of “contending with the past,” and whether the will exists is in the communities to develop a reconciliation process “based on a constructive dealing with the past, rather than something that entrenches division.”

PHOTO: Family members stand beside seven white chairs in Belfast, which represent victims that have been abducted and murdered during the troubles and their bodies have never been recovered. Picture date: Thursday August 30, 2012. (Paul Faith/PA/AP Photo)

On May 10th 2013, a Guatemalan court convicted former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the Mayan Ixil population during the country’s civil war in the early 1980’s. Yet the victims could enjoy their long overdue vindication for only 10 days, before the Constitutional Court ordered a retrial. The trial will begin again in 2015.

As Guatemala and the international community mark the first anniversary of this historic verdict, the country’s political elite and its institutions refuse to acknowledge or address its legacy of atrocities, which has led to outright denial that the genocide even took place: On Tuesday, Guatemalan Congress approved a non-binding resolution that denies there was any attempt to commit genocide during the civil war, and at the same time, called for "national reconciliation."

For insight into these developments, we talked with Marcie Mersky, ICTJ’s Director of Programs, who just returned from Guatemala. In this interview with ICTJ’s Marta Martínez, Mersky analyzes the impact of the Ríos Montt verdict on a very polarized society, including the departure of Claudia Paz y Paz from the position of Attorney General, and the recent effort to disbar Judge Yassmín Barrios –the presiding judge in the trial of Ríos Montt.

“[Guatemala] remains a deeply polarized society where the structural injustices and problems that led to conflict in the first place have mostly been unattended,” says Mersky. “Those same frustrations, those same power dynamics that played out and led to the war itself, while maybe softened around the edges, in some cases are still very present.”

She notes that opinions about the genocide conviction are very polarized. “For victims, it’s been an incredible vindication of their right to justice, their very deep understanding of what an injustice feels like, and that they have been right in insisting that genocide was committed against them,” Mersky explains. “They feel pride in what they were able to accomplish, but also deep frustration that the system in the end proved that in fact it did not defend their rights.”

On the other hand, the verdict “has shown how deeply unremorseful and unreformed the country’s power elites remain,” said Mersky, who says is concerned about the “absolute unwillingness to accept deep wrongdoing” by the Guatemalan elites because it sends a message that under similar circumstances, crimes could be repeated.

Mersky also discusses the Constitutional Court’s decision to make Claudia Paz y Paz step down as Attorney General, seven months earlier than her term was due to expire. The decision cited a transitory element of the Constitution as its basis, but the move is being seen in the country and internationally as politically-motivated. “Almost certainly, it was at its core a form of retaliation for her decision to have the prosecution move forward on the genocide trial, but it’s also very much related to the presidential elections, which will take place in 2015.”

With regards to the newly appointed Attorney General, Thelma Aldana, Mersky doesn’t expect prosecutions of serious crimes from the past to move forward. “There will be no more high-level prosecutions that prosper,” she said.

Despite these grave challenges, Mersky stresses that the trial of Rios Montt offers some positive lessons for other transitioning countries: First, the process demonstrated the importance of long-term reform of institutions to ensure their independence. In addition, the trial displayed the critical role civil society has to play in pursuit of human rights prosecutions. Lastly, Mersky says the trial showed why during prosecutions of this kind, the focus should be on the victims. “It was the victims’ voices—their testimonies, their conviction to move this case forward and to try and achieve justice—that was at the center of the process.”

PHOTO: An indigenous woman following the Ríos Montt trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the Mayan Ixil population during the country’s civil war in the early 1980’s. Guatemala City, April 1st, 2013. (Sandra Sebastián/Plaza Pública)

In its first step to explore how cultural and social factors interact with transitional justice measures, ICTJ is pleased to have just released a new book titled Transitional Justice, Culture, and Society: Beyond Outreach.

As the result of an innovative, multi-year project of ICTJ’s Research unit, the book examines how outreach programs, the media, and other aspects of culture have the potential to strengthen or undermine social transformation.

In this edition of the ICTJ Forum, ICTJ’s Communications Director Refik Hodzic speaks with Clara Ramírez Barat, Senior Associate with ICTJ's Research Unit], and editor of the book.

Ramírez Barat explains the motivation behind taking up this research project to investigate the still largely unexplored relationships between culture, society, and transitional justice. She also emphasizes why broader social and historical contexts are vital to the success of efforts towards accountability and reform.

The book, which builds upon existing research by ICTJ, aims to provide guidance and practical and tools for practitioners engaged in the design of public education and outreach programs.

“Outreach was conceived as actions by institutions to [secure] ‘buy in’ and public support,” explains Ramírez Barat. “They didn’t acknowledge the fact that these institutions are democratic in nature and that they have to be legitimate, and legitimized by the societies in which they operate.”

Examining the role of outreach led the Research unit to ask itself about the role of other factors, such as media and art, both of which play an important role to frame the narratives of these processes, and things that “cannot be captured in a truth commission report or in a testimony in a trial chamber.”

Ramírez Barat stresses the need to further explore the relationship between transitional justice, culture, and the media, and invites experts from fields outside of transitional justice –such as artists, journalists, and intellectuals– to reflect upon these intersections.

“You can have perfect procedures, you can have a perfect truth commission; but if the message that a truth commission wants to send out is not read or understood or discussed by the population, there’s no point,” she says.

Download Transitional Justice, Culture, and Society: Beyond Outreach

Photo: Desaparecidos (Disappeared), Gervasio Sánchez photography exhibition, 10th Human Rights Film Festival, San Sebastian, Spain, April 2012 (Iñigo Royo)

ICTJ Dispatch is a new podcast series to present expert political, social, and legal analysis of recent developments in transitional societies where ICTJ works to support truth, accountability and reform. It features interviews with our experts who regularly conduct missions to assist ongoing transitional justice efforts around the world.

In this edition of ICTJ Dispatch, Eduardo González, Director of ICTJ's Truth and Memory program, reports on his recent mission to Nepal, where the country's Parliament is discussing key proposal to establish truth-seeking bodies: Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and a Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (COID).

Recently, ICTJ expressed deep concern that the bill retains flaws already rejected by the country’s Supreme Court in January, and urged Parliament to use its discussions to amend the draft law.

Last week, we spoke with González about these unfolding developments, which many suspect may finally move Nepal's much-delayed efforts for truth-seeking. In this interview with ICTJ's Hannah Dunphy, González explains why the current debates taking place in Nepal mark a critical moment after years of work towards truth and justice.

"The government and sectors of civil society have been jousting about the provisions for this Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances for the last seven year," said González. "The question is always whether there is sufficient political willingness among policy makers in Nepal to actually comply with a truth commission that will ensure right to the truth that victims have, instead of a truth commission that is there to satisfy interests [...] related to impunity."

PHOTO: Family members of people who allegedly disappeared during a decade-long civil conflict stage a sit- in protest in front of Nepal prime minister's residence in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, June, 19, 2007. About 200 people barricaded the Nepalese prime minister's house, demanding the government reveal the whereabouts of hundreds of people who allegedly disappeared during a decade-long civil conflict. (AP Photo/ Binod Joshi)

ICTJ Dispatch is a new podcast series to present expert political, social, and legal analysis of recent developments in transitional societies where ICTJ works to support truth, accountability and reform. It will feature interviews with our experts who regularly conduct missions to assist ongoing transitional justice efforts around the world.

In the first edition of ICTJ Dispatch, ICTJ's Deputy Program Director Anna Myriam Roccatello reports on her recent mission to Cote d'Ivoire. There, president Alassane Ouattara’s government has recently extended the mandate of the Dialogue, Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Special Investigative Unit of the Ministry of Justice, both tasked to address the crimes committed during the election-related violence in 2010 in which some 3000 people died and hundreds of thousands were displaced.

In this interview with ICTJ Communications Director Refik Hodzic, Roccatello explains that while the initial decisions to establish these bodies carried promise that Cote d’Ivoire would undergo a genuine reckoning with the causes and consequences of violence of 2010, both processes have been marred: the truth commission has experienced continual delays, and the Special Investigative Unit has been accused biased investigations which so far have been directed only against supporters of former president Laurent Gbagbo.

“It’s been two and half years since the inception of these institutions, and there are some reservations about the results of their work among the victims, but also international community which has supported the Ivorian government in the process,” says Roccatello. “These reservations have become stronger after the expiration of the original mandate, and although the mandate was extended in December, the doubts certainly remain.”

Listen to Roccatello’s full analysis below in the first edition of the ICTJ Dispatch:

Read more about the role of Ivorian civil society in the country's transitional justice processes here.

PHOTO: Local residents look into the cab of a burnt truck, in the Abobo neighborhood of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

In this episode of the ICTJ Forum, Ian Martin speaks with us about the relationship between truth-seeking and peace negotiations in the context of Nepal and countries in Middle East and North Africa.

Ian Martin has headed United Nations missions in several countries, most recently as Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Libya and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).

In this interview with ICTJ’s Hannah Dunphy, Ian Martin reflects on his experiences in Nepal, where transitional justice provisions did find their way into the peace agreement, many of which are now under consideration by the new government of Nepal. To date, truth and accountability for crimes committed during Nepal’s 1996-2006 war has been overwhelmingly absent.

“The Maoists indeed committed serious violations themselves during their insurgency, but by far the larger number of cases of disappearances and extrajudicial executions were at the hands of the army,” says Martin. “The army has remained the most powerful and unreformed institution in Nepal, which has really inhibited the political actors from any real commitment to accountability.”

Martin also discusses the ongoing transitions in the Middle East and North Africa. He points out that, post-revolution, many countries of the Arab Spring are dealing with sharp political polarization.

“I don’t think the MENA region lends itself to generalization,” says Martin. “But one generalization which I’m afraid is true is that these are at the moment very deeply divided societies […] and that I think makes it very difficult to reach agreement on how to go forward.”

When asked to reflect upon lessons-learned from his work in transitioning contexts around the world, Martin explains why negotiations over what transitional justice efforts are needed for a society may not best be decided upon during negotiations for peace.

“Sometimes it may actually be better not to try to settle transitional justice issues institutionally in a peace process, but to leave it open for a further period of discussion,” says Martin. “And that can then have the advantage of bringing victims and civil society into the discussion, because they’re not usually here at the table. They certainly weren’t at the table in the course of the Nepal peace process: it was only the two sides that had fought the armed conflict and their top leaderships that did the negotiating.”

“I’m inclining more towards thinking that societies need to take that time to really reflect on what is appropriate to their situation rather than have particular institutional models written in the time of a first negotiation."

Ian Martin's previous senior UN appointments include Head of the Headquarters Board of Inquiry into certain incidents in the Gaza Strip; Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Nepal; Special Envoy for Timor-Leste; Representative in Nepal of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General in the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea; Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the East Timor Popular Consultation; Chief of the UN Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda; and Director for Human Rights of the International Civilian Mission in Haiti.

He also served in the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina as Deputy High Representative for Human Rights. He was Secretary-General of Amnesty International (1986-92) and Vice President of the International Center for Transitional Justice (2002-05).

PHOTO: Ian Martin, pictured at the High-Level Symposium "Challenging the Conventional: Can truth Commission Effectively Strengthen Peace Processes?" held in New York, November 2013. (ICTJ)

On February 25, 1999, Guatemala’s Historical Clarification Commission published its final report. At the time, it went largely unnoticed by the international community, as compared to the South African TRC final report, published only a few months earlier. But today, on its 15th anniversary, we discuss why this report has become known as one of the most innovative and influential truth commission reports.

In the latest ICTJ podcast, we talked to Marcie Mersky, ICTJ’s Director of Programs, who, prior to joining ICTJ, was the coordinator of the final report of the Guatemalan commission, and Eduardo González, Director of ICTJ’s Truth and Memory Program and former member of Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Though the Guatemalan commission operated for just a year and a half, it set out to clarify the truth about an armed conflict that ravaged the country for over 30 years: the war between the government and insurgents spanned from 1962 to 1996, leaving behind a death toll of approximately 200,000.

The commission was able to recollect more than 7,300 testimonies, including those of Guatemalans in some of the most isolated and remote communities of the country. Its report did not directly name perpetrators, but was able to establish the underlying causes of the conflict by analyzing the political, social, and economic factors that drove the country into civil war.

In this conversation with ICTJ’s Marta Martinez, Mersky and González talk about why the Guatemalan commission is a model for unveiling root causes that lead to the gross violations and establishing institutional responsibilities, demonstrates the need to grant flexibility to the commission’s investigation, and why the selection of commissioners is vital to ensure the success of such process.

While Mersky admits that the decision to withhold the names of those they investigated was in some ways a detriment to accountability, she notes that identifying individual perpetrators would have limited more the commission methodologically. “It freed the commission to do its work more broadly and more freely using a broader range of methodology, [and it] opened a debate about the events that had never happened before in the country,” she said.

González notes the attention to local scenarios and the emphasis on an interdisciplinary approach. “There’s an effort to situate events in a way that requires the attention of historians, sociologists, and anthropologists,” González says. “But on the other hand, there’s dialogue with the law.”

Listen to the conversation with Mersky and Gonzalez in Spanish here

The chief of Guatemala's Historic Clarification Commission, also known as the Truth Commission, Otilia Lux de Coti contemplates the 590 crosses in a chapel in the church of Nebaj, about 125 miles north of Guatemala City, Monday, Jan 12, 1998, that is dedicated to victims of violence in Guatemala's 36 year civil war. Members of the Truth Commission, who's creation is part of the 1996 peace accords between the government and the ex-rebels, toured an area in north Guatemala Monday known as the Ixil triangle, and an exhumation of a massacre in the town of Chel. Eye witness testimonies attribute the massacre in Chel of roughly 97 villagers to the Guatemalan army on April 3, 1982. (AP Photo/Scott Sady).

In the latest episode of the ICTJ forum, Michael Otim, Director of ICTJ’s Uganda program, explains why the country has arrived at a critical moment in the struggle for truth, justice, and reparation for victims.

In this interview with ICTJ’s Hannah Dunphy, Michael Otim shares insight on the transitional justice efforts currently taking place on the ground in Uganda as it recovers from armed conflict, including the protracted two-year conflict in Northern Uganda, which pitted the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army against the government of Uganda.

Peace negotiations in 2008 included an agreement on accountability and reconciliation, which committed the government to implementing transitional justice measures that would provide remedy to victims of the conflict. Otim explains that while the Juba Process on Accountability and Reconciliation was a positive step, it recognized that no single mechanism would sufficiently address all of the complex needs and rights of the victims.

Since the 2008 negotiations, the government of Uganda has taken various steps since the negotiations to implement the transitional justice policy as well as the proposal to put in place a truth-seeking process and reparations initiatives, but has not yet managed to deliver a comprehensive approach to the different dimensions of reform and justice needed for the country.

Today, Otim reports that key transitional justice legislation is now awaiting approval from Uganda cabinet, where it will be sent on the parliament, allowing the government to spearhead a process to develop key laws to help realize full implementation of the transitional justice process.

“We think it’s quite a critical moment to move the transitional justice process forward,” says Otim.

Despite positive signs that the country will finally engage in comprehensive justice measures, he stresses that consultation with victims—a critical step in the development of transitional measures—has so far been absent.

“We need to have an inclusive and participatory process, in particular for marginalized groups, especially women and children,” he says. “The government needs to expeditiously move forward in ensuring the full-scale implementation of the policy so victims get a sense of justice for the violations that they experienced.”

Photo: AP Images

In the latest episode of the ICTJ Forum, Professor and former Kenya TJRC Commissioner Ron Slye shares insights on truth commissions, accountability and peace processes.

In this interview with ICTJ’s Hannah Dunphy, Professor Slye discusses evolving trends in the development of truth commissions, from early roots in Chile, Argentina and South Africa, to today’s discussion around potential truth commissions, such as Colombia.

Slye also reflects upon the difficulties facing peace talks as they negotiate amnesty and accountability.

“As you sit down with warring factions, there’s a negotiation that occurs in terms of what forms of accountability, if at all, are going to be acceptable, while you’re also trying to get people to stop killing or stop engaging in armed conflict,” he says.

He says that it is more and more clear that amnesties, even if all of the parties to a particular negotiation agree to them, will not be sustained.

“As negotiator, even if someone is pushing for an amnesty, it seems to me now one can say, whether genuinely or not, ‘I would like to agree to give you amnesty. However, I don’t have power over these other processes. And so you need to understand even if we’re able to agree to some sort of amnesty for you here in this room, we can’t guarantee that other institutions will recognize and give effect to that amnesty.’”

Slye was part of a group of international criminal law experts that recently developed the Belfast Guidelines on Amnesty and Accountability, a project which grew out of the recognition of what he calls “grey area” around acceptable pardons for past crimes.

“The purpose was to provide some sort of guidance to negotiators and others with respect to what would be a more acceptable form of amnesty and what would be a clearly an unacceptable or even illegal form,” he says.

In discussing the work of the Kenya Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC), Slye explains how the commissioners dealt with the broad and ambitious mandate of the commission, which was expected to address violations of civil and political rights, socioeconomic rights, and corruption. Of the final report of the TJRC, he says he hopes that the government will read the report, and move to implement some of its recommendations.

“I do hope that, if it’s not today or tomorrow, that a few years from now, or whatever that time period may be when there’s more openness to dealing with these issues on the part of the Kenya government, that they will take down our report from the shelf that they store it at to read it, reflect upon it, and find something useful in it.”