The Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation

The Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation brings together advocates, activists and practitioners from nine global organizations with expertise in a range of fields from psycho-social support and documentation to forensics and law. Together they assist communities in or emerging from conflict in creating just and peaceful futures.

In countries coming to terms with violent pasts, true peace cannot take hold unless all facets of society – particularly marginalized groups such as women, minorities and survivors – play a central role in rebuilding their countries. To date, however, many transitional justice models have failed to actively involve these key voices, preferring instead top-down procedures that prioritize the experiences and opinions of those in power.

To correct this wrong, the Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation (GIJTR) was founded in 2014 by the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (ICSC), a network of over 300 historic sites, museums and memory initiatives in 65 countries dedicated to connecting past struggles to contemporary movements for social justice. ICSC members themselves, particularly in Africa, Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, had increasingly expressed the need for grassroots truth, justice and reconciliation efforts to support national transitional justice processes. With its own expertise in memory and memorialization, ICSC responded by bringing together eight additional global organizations committed to promoting just and sustainable peace in countries in transition by engaging local civil society organizations, survivors and governments in a participatory, inclusive and holistic manner. Selected for their geographic diversity as well as a wide range of expertise, these organizations form the Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation.

Since its founding, GIJTR has engaged with people from 72 countries, worked with 681 CSOs, and has supported 323 community-driven projects and the collection of more than 5040 testimonies of human rights violations.

For more information on GIJTR, click here.