12 October 2023
The UN Secretary General has adopted his Guidance Note on transitional justice: A strategic tool for people, prevention and peace, following a two-year consultation process.
The document promotes transitional justice as a practical human rights-based policy tool to enhance peace and security, human rights and accountability, and sustainable development.
It aims to achieve greater innovation in the design and implementation of transitional justice. Of particular importance is the strong push to implement transformative transitional justice approaches that seek to challenge structural causes of impunity and “make a tangible difference in people’s lives”.
Impunity Watch is proud to have contributed substantially to developing the Guidance Note.
We highlighted the need to ensure transitional justice measures have a positive impact on the lives of victims and survivors.
We also stressed the importance of stronger political will to create an environment where structural reforms are possible. This can be done through human rights and justice education, coalition-building or the leveraging of regional and international mechanisms.
Finally, we called for providing comprehensive reparations for victims. This means ensuring reparations processes are consultative and linked to other justice initiatives, as illustrated in our report with INOVAS. The guidance note highlighted the report as “essential reading”.
Read the Guidance Note in full here.