Impunity Watch Recruiting Web Interns

Impunity Watch is looking for interns to help develop the design, functionality and content of its website.
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IW holds debate on monuments and youth

On 22 April 2010, as part of a series of debates on the role of memorialisation in the combat of impunity, Impunity Watch brought together experts and young people to consider the relationship between monuments to victims of war crimes and grave human rights abuses, and future generations. The event was organised in partnership with the Anne Frank House, partner on this project, and Critical Mass, a Dutch youth organisation.
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Report on Impunity Watch Panel Discussion

Transitional justice: are we ticking the boxes when we should be joining the dots?

Café Dudok, The Hague, 15 December 2009

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Report on Impunity Watch Expert Debate

1 July 2009, Amsterdam: Remembering the Srebrenica and Rwanda genocides: Do war memorials unite or divide?
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Dealing with Impunity in Serbia - Options and Obstacles

Now available in English, this document provides a summary of a research project conducted over the past two years in Serbia, examining the root causes and nature of impunity for crimes committed by the Serbian state and citizens during the wars of Yugoslavia's dissolution during the 1990s.
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Recognising the Past: Challenges in the Combat of Impunity in Guatemala

Now available in English, this document provides a summary of a research project conducted over the past two years in Guatemala, examining the root causes and nature of impunity for crimes committed during its long civil war.
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The Persistence of Truth

This report looks at progress in truth-seeking and the combat of impunity in Guatemala ten years after its UN-backed truth comission, the Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), published its findings on the events of the internal armed confrontation of 1960-96.
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Impunity Watch Research Instrument

This Impunity Watch tool offers a basic framework for researching the state of accountability in post-conflict societies.
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NEWS

IW Guatemala: Forum on Enforced Disappearance Cases

16/03/2010 - On 24 February 2010, Impunity Watch, together with its local partners, ICCPG, CALDH and CEDIM, and the Dutch Guatemala Platform against Impunity, held a public forum to highlight two recent cases in which members of the military, including a high ranking officer, were convicted for crimes committed during Guatemala’s internal armed confrontation.

The Choatalum and El Jute Cases, decided 7 September and 3 December 2009 respectively, have historic importance as the first occasions on which the crime of enforced disappearance has been prosecuted. This is both an important breakthrough for justice and a ray of hope for victims of the 36-year-long conflict whose assailants have until now remained in absolute impunity.

A panel including key witnesses in the cases, the president of the court which handed down the judgment in the Choatalum Case, the Secretary for Criminal Policy of the Public Prosecutors Office, and representatives of the International Commission of Jurists, the UN and the CICIG, spoke on the importance of these decisions as a highly positive first step by the Guatemalan judiciary towards ending impunity for the estimated 45,000 victims of enforced disappearances, as well as the victims of other grave human rights violations committed during the conflict.

Speakers also applauded the quality of the judgments, their inclusion of human rights standards and principles in their reasoning, and the valour shown by the judges in maintaining their independence in a climate of intense pressure to allow cases of human rights violations to go unpunished. The witnesses in the cases urged other victim communities to overcome their fears, insist on telling the truth about the atrocities they suffered, and press on with their cases and legitimate demands for justice before the courts.

The event was attended by over 150 people from a wide variety of institutions and organisations, including judges and justice operators, members of government institutions and the Human Rights Ombudsman's office, representatives of victims’, grassroots and human rights organisations, diplomats, including the US and Peruvian ambassadors, UN representatives, and other members of the international community, and the media.

Extracts and complete versions of the judgments were distributed to the audience, in print and digital formats.

Impunity Watch hopes that this event has helped confirm the groundbreaking importance of the Choatalum and El Jute cases, and demonstrated to Guatemalan institutions that a broad range of actors – both national and international – are firmly behind them in the continued investigation and prosecution of human rights cases.

Extracts of the El Jute and Choatalum judgments can be read in the booklet produced by Impunity Watch for this event. Click here to download it.

More information about the cases can also be found in earlier Impunity Watch reports:

El Jute case reduces impunity for forced disappearance in Guatemala

Landmark judgment in Guatemalan forced disappearance case

Guatemalan Constitutional Court decision paves the way for El Jute trial

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