Transitional Justice

We focus on the rights of victims to truth, justice, reparation and reconciliation in the context of armed conflict

Photo: Trocaire

Victims' Rights & Constitutional Transitions

We focus on the rights of victims to truth, justice, reparation and reconciliation in the context of armed conflict in Colombia. Our advocacy in Colombia on these issues has an international perspective, which we hone by developing case studies on constitutional transitions in other parts of the world and participating in forums for expertise- sharing which bring together international organizations and networks.

We analyze and have an influential expert voice in the Processes of Justice and Peace, the Legal Framework for Peace, the Law of Victims and, currently, the Peace Process in Colombia. We study and contribute to the debate on the mechanisms for the approval of the peace agreement, prosecution, alternative penalties, and the truth commission—always with a distributive justice perspective and with the aim of achieving reparations that are truly transformative.

Activities & Direct Advocacy

Leaders Assassinated in Colombia: how many are left out of the counts?

By Dejusticia | Oct 18, 2018

This analysis by Dejusticia and the Human Rights Data Analysis Group groups the information compiled by different organizations regarding the homicides of social leaders in the country and concludes, through a statistical method, that the problem has a greater magnitude than what is reported.

Jury Finds Former Bolivian President and Defense Minister Responsible for Extrajudicial Killings of Indigenous People

By Dejusticia, Claret Vargas | Apr 5, 2018

Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, and Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, ordered security forces in Bolivia to use deadly military force against unarmed civilians to suppress popular protests against government policies. In all, security forces slaughtered 58 citizens and injured more than 400, almost all from indigenous Aymara communities.

Victims and press after the war

By Vivian Newman Pont, Maria Paula Ángel, María Ximena Dávila | Jan 31, 2018

The drive to conduct this research was born out of the tension that developed on May of 2017 in the context of the journalistic coverage of the exhumations of those who died in the Bojayá massacre.

Litigation

Rural reform decree to resolve historic debt with peasants

By César Rodríguez-Garavito (Retired in 2019), Rodrigo Uprimny Yepes, Nelson Camilo Sánchez León, Irina Alejandra Junieles Acosta, Gabriela Eslava, Ana Jimena Bautista, Maryluz Barragán | Aug 15, 2017

Terrible conditions in the countryside and lack of access to land are linked to the armed conflict. Point one of the Peace Agreement, which is under study by the Constitutional Court, addresses these issues. Dejusticia presented an intervention supporting most of its content.

Prison is not the only sanction in transitional justice mechanisms

By César Rodríguez-Garavito (Retired in 2019) | Jul 26, 2017

César Rodríguez defended that the Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Repetition is in line with the Constitution. Regarding penalties, he affirmed that international law discusses effective sanctions, not imprisonment.

The reform that gives stability and legal certainty to the Peace Agreement is constitutional

By César Rodríguez Garavito (Se retiró en 2019), Rodrigo Uprimny Yepes, Diana Isabel Güiza Gómez | Jul 26, 2017

Dejusticia defended the constitutionality of the Legislative Act that gives legal certainty to the Final Agreement, and stressed that its contents respond to fundamental rights and international humanitarian law norms.

Columns &
Blogs

From Snow Angels to a Humanitarian Emergency

By Maritza Florián Buitrago, Erin Formby | Mar 2, 2021

If States like Texas with ample means to tackle climate change fail to do so, the world as a whole fails given that the planet loses momentum in the collective effort to become more resilient against this phenomenon.

Despite Biden’s Victory, Authoritarian Populism Continues to Threaten U.S. Democracy

By Erin Formby | Dec 4, 2020

The Republican Party violates norms which protect democracy more frequently than 85% of other political parties leading democracies around the world. Their lack of commitment to these norms shows that the U.S. political system could be weakened even further if another antidemocratic leader comes to power.

International Humanitarian Law and Victims of Child Recruitment as Targets of an Attack

By Alejandro Jiménez Ospina, Aaron Alfredo Acosta | Sep 8, 2020

An interpretation of the spirit of IHL, manifested in the principles of military necessity and humanity, as well as the IHRL standards applicable to children, should always prohibit the State from causing excessive death or injury. There is nothing more excessive than killing recruited children —vulnerable, discriminated against, and abandoned by the State— in order to gain a military advantage that could have been achieved through other means.

Project Highlights

Photo: Piyushgiri Revagar

Accountability of Corporate Actors During Transitional Justice Processes

As part of a broader project on the accountability of corporate actors during transitional processes, Dejusticia, along with partner organizations, intervened in the the 2nd Session of Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group on Transnational Corporations and Human Rights

Dejusticia, as an organization with ECOSOC consultative status, presented an oral intervention during the second panel of the session, calling attention to the special conditions of societies living in the context of conflict or undergoing a transition process. These societies have special conditions as they demand accountability from economic actors that have cooperated or assisted in the violation of human rights during armed conflict. Thus, Dejusticia requested that the Working Group consider specific provisions that take into account the needs of these societies to prosecute corporate complicity with conflict actors.

A transcript of our intervention can be found here.

Normative implementation of the peace agreement

Dejusticia analyzes and tracks the normative implementation of the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP. Our work includes short documents analyzing the constitutional and legal reforms that develop the agreement; participation in public hearings in Congress; interventions before the Constitutional Court; work in networks of civil society organizations, academics and university research groups; and participation in media debates.