Beyond these specific lenses, participants identified multi-level and multi-sector stakeholder engagement as the primary priority for applying TJ methods more effectively and sustainably. TJ needs to create strategies for how to support victim-centric justice. Participants discussed how appropriate engagement with local and global stakeholders across the conflict cycle is necessary for ensuring that efforts identify and respond to the correct set of needs. Local support for TJ processes ensures that the justice mechanisms are not only tailored to address the most grievous crimes, but are also understood and received positively by the communities they intend to serve. As noted by a senior human rights practitioner, the benefit of engaging those most affected was evident, for example, in the Special Court in Sierra Leone. Although the Court could only prosecute a handful of senior perpetrators, a Truth Commission – created first and foremost to create an impartial historical record – conducted thousands of meetings across Sierra Leone to explain the rationale behind the trials, and broadcast court cases to the public. As a result, 90% of the public was made aware of the trials, and many in Sierra Leone now say that the TJ process led to successful outcomes. Public engagement is thus a vital tool for gaining support for TJ efforts.
Within this local engagement context, participants stressed that inviting victims and survivors to become a part of TJ processes allows efforts to focus on what each community needs to move beyond past harms. As examples, MENA experts noted that some victims would rather receive reparations and support with rebuilding their livelihoods, whereas others prioritised holding perpetrators accountable for serious crimes. For TJ to reflect these varying objectives, the process must engage with victims and survivors throughout both the design and implementation stages. For example, the government of Iraq had passed a Yazidi Survivors Law, without proper consultation with the survivors of CRSV. Although the law provided Yazidi survivors with monthly payments as reparations, it failed to recognise what is most important to many of those affected: looking for the missing, exhuming mass graves, restoring residential areas, and criminal accountability. In fact, many survivors felt that these payments were ‘blood money’.
Following the passage of this law, the advocate in question had worked with Civil Society organisations to convince Iraqi lawmakers to speak directly with survivors; this led the lawmakers to incorporate Yazidi women’s experiences into the law and, as the advocate notes, improved the ability of the law to address justice effectively. Local stakeholder engagement thus proved critical for augmenting TJ outcomes.
International stakeholder engagement
Beyond local perspectives, international stakeholder engagement also emerged as critical to ensuring effective TJ. One issue raised repeatedly was that the international community had in some cases failed to support criminal trials, because of illiberal practices in the relevant countries. For example, evidence of international crimes (such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide) in Iraq was collected and stored by the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL (UNITAD). However, UNITAD refused to return the majority of evidence to affected countries (including Iraq), partly because evidence could be utilised in trials leading to the death penalty. This made it harder to hold perpetrators accountable and hindered domestic justice efforts. In Syria too, some evidence stored internationally was still unavailable because of diverging criminal justice practices.
In such cases, third parties that were the original supporters for the creation of international documentation missions (in UNITAD’s case, the UK) could still advocate for these entities to share evidence with countries that experienced the human rights violations, via appropriate legal reforms. Furthermore, they could expand their own jurisdiction to hold perpetrators visiting these countries accountable; as noted by an advocate at the event, the only justice for international crimes committed against the Yazidis thus far had occurred outside of Iraq and Syria, via cases in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Kosovo, and Belgium. Many participants thus argued that third countries continued to play an important role in TJ, including in efforts to make it more victim-centric.
Discussants also raised how better global engagement could resolve issues with the provision of funding, which is currently often too short-term for effective TJ
- Often, international funding for TJ projects only lasts for two years, requiring projects to shut down just as they start to generate trust and impact. In addition, global funding is often seen as prioritising what the international community wants to address, rather than the interests of victims and survivors. Many participants thought that long-term funding was preferable even if the total monetary amounts were lower.
- Likewise, event participants agreed that funding for justice at earlier stages of a conflict (prior to an agreement or ‘transition’ to peace) was crucial, especially for documentation efforts to preserve evidence and to support identification of missing persons. Effective engagement with funding and evidence-holding bodies was therefore also identified as a requirement for successful TJ.
Participants also suggested that the TJ ecosystem needs to better incorporate traditionally under-acknowledged TJ actors, with greater agency provided to the Global South nations to mediate in conflicts within their region and beyond.
The group thus reached some consensus on the need for both multi-level and multi-sector stakeholder engagement. Participants emphasised that this engagement should ensure that governments and organisations appropriately represent the interests of victims and survivors. This means that TJ actors cannot afford, for example, to provide amnesty to perpetrators due to corruption or cronyism, as this could fracture the trust placed in them by victims and survivors. In addition, TJ needs to avoid becoming a ‘transactional justice’ that prevented accountability for those most affected because of its lack of understanding of relevant populations. A systemic commitment to multi-stakeholder engagement is needed for TJ to endure the current ‘trial’ and deliver justice for (and through) victims and survivors.