Transitional Justice
What is Transitional Justice?
Transitional justice describes a range of judicial and non-judicial strategies used to deal with a legacy of human rights abuses and armed conflict in a given country. These strategies have a variety of goals: to hold those who had command responsibility for systematic abuses legally accountable; to help repair social divisions caused by conflict; to provide survivors with a full accounting and acknowledgement of the abuses that occurred; to offer material and moral reparations to survivors; and to reform key state institutions including the military, police and judiciary in order to ensure that the pattern of human rights violations is not repeated.Our Transitional Justice Work
CJA works directly with foreign governments on a variety of transitional justice initiatives. We work alongside in-country prosecutors to hold human rights abusers criminally accountable in national courts - especially where defendants in CJA’s UJ cases have been deported or extradited to stand trial in the home country. CJA attorneys provide expertise on witness preparation and testimony, the introduction of evidence, charging human rights crimes and other areas of human rights prosecutions. We also organize trainings that bring together faculties of judges, prosecutors, investigators and forensic anthropologists with strong track records in national court human rights prosecutions. The focus of our training work is on imparting the practical “how to” specifics of bringing successful national court prosecutions and focusing on the actual, day to day obstacles prosecutors and NGO lawyers face in fighting impunity.Argentina: Assisting the Truth Trials for the Disappeared of La Plata
On April 1998, the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights of La Plata requested that the Federal Court of la Plata set up a process to "tell the truth" about the disappearances which occurred in that region of Argentina during the civil war. As a result, the court established the “Truth Trials” where survivors are able to present testimony every Wednesday. In 2009, CJA began to represent survivors in these proceedings and to assist in preparing testimony.
Ecuador: Helping the Truth Commission Pursue Criminal Accountability
In 2009 the Truth Commission of Ecuador approached CJA and requested our assistance in their efforts to pursue national criminal litigation for crimes against humanity and other international crimes. CJA is proud to announce the release of the final report of Ecuador’s Truth Commission, detailing various human rights violations perpetrated against 456 victims. President Rafael Correa’s government established the Truth Commission in May 2007 in order to investigate alleged human rights abuses committed between 1984 and 2008, particularly during the right-wing administration of former President León Febres Cordero from 1984 through 1988.
Guatemala: The Guatemala Evidence Project
Conceived and launched by CJA and legal advisor Professor Naomi Roht-Arriaza, this project aims to develop evidence to support litigation involving the Guatemalan genocide in Guatemalan and Spanish courts and before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The principal collaborators are CJA, the National Security Archive, the Myrna Mack Foundation and Impunity Watch. The Project is an investigative effort aimed at consolidating and indexing documentation on the Guatemalan army and security forces in an authoritative computer database and narrative report for use in the genocide case and future human rights legal actions.
Honduras: Human Rights Training Program
“Prosecuting Human Rights Crimes in National Courts” was held on December 4-6 2007, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The training brought together 80 Honduran prosecutors with a faculty of legal practitioners from Latin America, Spain and the United States with experience and expertise in the prosecution of human rights abusers.
Peru: Trial Support for the Prosecution of President Alberto Fujimori
On April 7, 2009, former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was found guilty for his role in human rights abuses committed during his 1992-2000 tenure. The historic verdict marks the first time that an elected head of state has been convicted of human rights violations by a national court in his own country. CJA partnered with the prosecution team to prepare testimony and advise on trial strategy. CJA also authored an amicus brief on procedural rules and the admissibility of declassified documents. Many of the arguments made in our brief were included by the court in its final opinion.
Peru: First Census of the Disappeared
CJA serves as a senior advisor to the Peruvian Institute of Forensic Anthropology (EPAF). EPAF conducts exhumations and investigations of massacres and forced disappearances as well as other human rights abuses. EPAF’s findings have been crucial to the criminal investigations ongoing in Peru and the cases before the Inter-American Court for Human Rights. EPAF has provided important evidence on the Accomarca massacre to CJA for our Peru litigation and on the La Cantuta massacre for the Fujimori trial.
» Read more on the Accomarca massacre.
» Read more on the La Cantuta massacre.
Tibet: Support for the Tibet Genocide Case
CJA is providing legal advice and support to the legal team that initiated the Tibet Genocide Case pending before the Spanish National Court. CJA has assisted with the second investigation initiated by Judge Pedraz which concerns the torture and killings of Tibetan priests in Lhasa on March 2008. The priests were holding a peaceful demonstration; it is alleged that over a hundred priests were shot by Chinese police officers, and others were arrested and tortured. Thousands of Tibetans have been killed by the Chinese military since the 1949 invasion and occupation.
On April 25, 2009, an historic round of survivor and expert witnesses testimony occurred in Madrid. Among the witnesses was former political prisoner Tagna Jigme Zangpo who was imprisoned for 32 years and severely tortured. CJA prepared the testimony of Kate Saunders, Communications Director at International Campaign for Tibet, Terri Marsh, human rights advocate expert, and Kalsang Gumstoe, relative of a victim of the above described Lhasa killings who is living in the U.S. as a refugee.
