History
While human rights organizations have traditionally focused on documenting violations and lobbying against abuse, the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) was founded on the concept of a new direction in human rights advocacy: helping societies to heal by accounting for and addressing past crimes after a period of repressive rule or armed conflict.
ICTJ was first conceived at a strategy meeting hosted by the Ford Foundation in April 2000. More than two dozen participants, including legal scholars, as well as human rights advocates and practitioners, gathered to discuss ways of contributing to the rapidly emerging field of transitional justice.
The participants expressed broad support for the establishment of an organization focusing on transitional justice. The Foundation subsequently asked three consultants—Alex Boraine, Priscilla Hayner and Paul van Zyl—to develop a plan for such an organization. Their initial five-year proposal received funding support from the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Andrus Family Fund.
ICTJ officially opened its doors in New York City on March 1, 2001, and within six months was operating in more than a dozen countries, as requests for assistance poured in. In 2004 Founding President Alex Boraine returned to South Africa to establish the Center’s Cape Town Office. Offices in Brussels and Geneva followed in 2005. ICTJ currently has offices in New York City, Beirut, Bogotá, Brussels, Cape Town, Geneva, Jakarta, Kampala, Monrovia, Nairobi, and Nepal.
In March 2012 the ICTJ Director of Research, Pablo de Greiff, was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council as its first Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantee of non-recurrence.
Read more about this topic: International Center For Transitional Justice
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