Defined broadly, justice within a transitional justice framework seeks to break cycles of violence through accountability and re-establishing the rule of law. While justice is most often understood in terms of criminal prosecution, increasingly, international actors as well as victims and survivors are recognizing that truth-telling, restoring trust in state institutions, awarding reparations to those harmed and building strong societies are forms of justice in themselves. All these outcomes reduce the risk of future conflict as well as recognize and re-establish the rights of survivors and victims.

Peace and justice are in tension in many conflict-affected countries. In contexts including Afghanistan, Myanmar, South Sudan, Sri Lanka and Syria, conflict actors have remained close to power and have resisted pursuing justice, which could end the culture of impunity that protects them.[i] Those actors sometimes reignite conflict in order to derail efforts toward justice and peace. At the same time, the failure to achieve justice and end impunity diminishes the legitimacy of so-called peace” in the eyes of the general population.

Achieving justice for victims and survivors of conflict, particularly protracted conflicts, is a complex process. Some of the chapters in this report document the work by international, state and civil society actors to overcome these challenges, while others report on processes that have stalled or been obstructed. For instance, the government of South Sudan is still failing to take necessary steps, eight years after agreeing to establish a Hybrid Court with the African Union, to prosecute war crimes and other human rights violations.[ii] In Ethiopia, a peace agreement signed in November 2022 to end the Tigray conflict provides for “a comprehensive national transitional justice policy aimed at accountability, ascertaining the truth, redress for victims, reconciliation, and healing,” but as long as those who led the war remain in senior positions, such a process will face challenges.[iii] Even in Ukraine, where domestic prosecutions of Russian fighters began in May 2022 and there is significant political will for justice, tens of thousands of potential cases are still awaiting trial.[iv]

International courts and hybrid tribunals have taken some steps toward delivering justice, although international entities are largely focused on accountability rather than restorative or distributive justice. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is currently considering a genocide case against Myanmar, brought by the Republic of The Gambia under the Genocide Convention. The ICC, meanwhile, is investigating atrocities against the Rohingya in Myanmar, conducting war crimes and crimes against humanity investigations in Afghanistan and Ukraine and pursuing a warrant for former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s role in the Darfur genocide.[v] Political obstacles and UN Security Council vetoes have prevented some actions, such as the ICC case against Syrian government authorities, but justice advocates have found other avenues of approach in some cases. In Syria’s case, Syrian and international advocacy pushed the UN General Assembly to establish the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism to collect evidence of international atrocity crimes.[vi]

National criminal trials pursued through universal jurisdiction are an increasingly popular international approach to justice. Successful prosecutions have been made against a former Afghan prison official (in the Netherlands), a high-ranking Syrian official (in Germany) and a Gambian official (also in Germany).[vii] In November 2019, a Rohingya organization filed a lawsuit in Argentinian courts for genocide and crimes against humanity under the principle of universal jurisdiction, the first hearings for which were held in November 2021.[viii] While such trials are exemplary in seeking to advance truth through accountability processes even when the perpetrators prevent domestic justice mechanisms from acting, they are ultimately only feasible in a limited set of willing jurisdictions.

Even where political will exists to uncover the truth, hold perpetrators accountable and provide reparation to victims, justice processes are often highly incomplete. The conflict may have seriously damaged the justice system. Judicial personnel may have been forced to flee, courts may have ceased to operate or been destroyed, law enforcement’s legitimacy may have been compromised by its involvement in the conflict and armed groups may have prevented the legal system from operating in areas they control for extended periods. In these situations, alternative approaches to justice are even more important. The work of GIJTR civil society partners who have contributed to this report shows that, beyond the formal mechanisms of transitional justice, the process of truth-telling occurs in many other places and spaces. Informal civil society-led initiatives often bring communities together across the divide of a conflict. For local communities, victims and survivors, justice has a range of meanings extending beyond criminal prosecutions alone, and it is these informal processes that more communities turn to both complement formal processes and substitute for them when absent or insufficient.