International Center for Transitional Justice

The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) was created in 2001 as a specialized organization focused on helping societies reckoning with legacies of massive human rights abuses to prevent recurrence and increase prospects of sustainable peace.  A “think tank that does,” ICTJ has worked in over 50 countries. We inform the way practitioners and policymakers think about and practice transitional justice and build capacity of domestic civil society organizations and victims’ groups and authorities, helping them design and implement solutions that will work for them.  

Mission

ICTJ works across society and borders to challenge the causes and address the consequences of massive human rights violations. We affirm victims’ dignity, fight impunity, and promote responsive institutions.

Vision

Societies break the cycle of massive human rights violations and lay the foundations for peace, justice, and inclusion.

• ICTJ provides technical assistance to governments, the justice sector, the UN and other international bodies. We highlight the responsibility of states to address past violations and help set out concrete ways to do this. We work worldwide.
• ICTJ advises and helps build capacity on specific initiatives and strategies with victims and their representatives, on a range of transitional justice approaches—including criminal prosecutions, reparations initiatives, truth-seeking, memorialization.
• Our research aims to bolster knowledge of successes and failures in the field, promote innovation, and inform best practice. We share this knowledge locally, regionally and internationally, in the form of publications, policy recommendations, working sessions and international convenings. Browse the publications library or learn more about our research projects.

We work to ensure local ownership of the transition process, prioritize the needs and interests of victims, and to build confidence in the rule of law in society at large.