Global Initiative Against Impunity for International Crimes and Serious Human Rights Violations
Working with partners to confront the global rise in impunity
While in recent decades, significant efforts have been made to confront the rise of impunity in response to human rights, humanitarian law, and international criminal law violations, significant challenges remain to deliver justice to survivors.
Impunity has been facilitated by the erosion of national and international accountability mechanisms, the targeting or criminalisation of justice actors and human rights defenders, a lack of meaningful participation of survivors, as well as weak political will and inadequate laws. These challenges have been coupled in recent years by a global context of diminishing civic space for victims and human rights defenders, and the increasing risks they face.
To address a rising climate of impunity, REDRESS has joined forces with eight other civil society organisations and two associate partners to lead the “Global Initiative Against Impunity for International Crimes and Serious Human Rights Violations: Making Justice Work”.
Each of the organisations, in collaboration with their networks of national and regional partners, will contribute their expertise in promoting victim-centred, trauma informed and gender sensitive justice and accountability for serious human rights violations, including torture and enforced disappearance, and other core international crimes, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
This strategic partnership comprises the following consortium members: Civil Rights Defenders, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Impunity Watch, the International Federation for Human Rights, Parliamentarians for Global Action, REDRESS, TRIAL International, and Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice. They are supported by two associate partners: the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities and the International Commission of Jurists.
The four-year Initiative, co-funded by the European Union, will have a special focus in 2024 on 27 countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, but it will also seek to improve the rule of law, accountability standards, and atrocity prevention in other countries of these regions.
The Global Initiative against Impunity has developed a comprehensive approach that seeks to secure far-reaching justice and accountability for survivors and victims by working on two main fronts:
- Enhancing victims’ and civil society’s agency and participation in shaping inclusive justice and accountability processes, as their exclusion undermines prospects for achieving meaningful justice and sustainable change.
- Strengthening the effectiveness of the accountability frameworks and systems to fight impunity through dialogue, advocacy and awareness raising between justice providers and duty-bearers with survivors and civil society organisations.
All actions will be guided by a survivor-centred approach and will promote a trauma-informed and gender-responsive strategy where victims engage as actors and advocates. This approach is rooted in a broad understanding of impunity, its root causes and the systemic drivers that enable it.
The threat of impunity is too great to tackle alone, but through collaboration, the Global Initiative Against Impunity aims to help make justice work for those who need it most.
If you would like to become involved or know about this initiative, please contact us on [email protected].
Photo: Cristina Chiquin/Impunity Watch. Maya Achi women participate in the commemoration of the National Day Against Forced Disappearances in Guatemala City on 21 June 2019. In January 2022, they won a case against five former paramilitaries who subjected them to acts of sexual violence and slavery during the internal armed conflict.