Advancing Justice Amid Conflict: GIJTR’s Rapid Response Programming
Given its dedication to connecting transitional justice with atrocity prevention, GIJTR embraces rapid response programs when an ongoing conflict demands their support and unique skillset. This approach—which presumes there are urgent actions to be taken before a “transition” has occurred—is relatively novel in the transitional justice field, but is proving effective in countering challenges related specifically to modern conflict, including the widespread use of social media and disinformation. Public International Law & Policy Group, a GIJTR Consortium partner, describes the impact of these methods, not only in the Rohingya context but more broadly, as creating new standards for conflict-related documentation: “The fact that this evidence is being gathered and these statements are being stored has really sort of moved the bar in terms of the baseline for data collection in such contexts [for people] working in this space… there is this increased impetus to gather this information because there is this expectation that it will be used at some point, which I think maybe wasn’t the case 10 years ago. GIJTR has proven that such data collection is feasible and has set a new standard.” This approach represents a new paradigm for human rights documentation, one that centers those directly affected by violations, ensures their agency in the documentation process and produces outputs that serve communities in the here and now. Moreover, the sustainable capacity created by GIJTR programming represents a resource that will continue to serve the Rohingya community in the long term.
An image from the Maidan Museum in Kyiv, Ukraine, a long-time member of GIJTR Consortium partner ICSC. Photo credit: The Maidan Museum
In the months after Russia invaded Ukraine, for instance, GIJTR began working with local partners in the country on a robust documentation program that supports civil society actors to document ongoing violations being committed by Russian forces, with a special focus on conflict-related sexual violence. In this setting, civil society documentation complements efforts underway by the Ukrainian state and has proven particularly effective in that it is carried out in communities recovering from violence by those who survivors know and trust. While the documentation collected will be secured for future accountability processes, it also serves to counter disinformation by foregrounding the importance of truth-telling in communities. As a staff member at Truth Hounds, a GIJTR local partner in Ukraine, explains: “Contemporary documentation is a tool to fight contemporary and anticipated revisionism. Generally speaking, denial is a process that goes in parallel with the documentation here in Ukraine. Unlike in other conflicts like WWII or the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, where denial came years later … in Ukraine we have indeed this parallel process of denial together with fact establishment …So that is connected with the ongoing information warfare that the Russian Federation is financing and is sponsoring.” While truth-telling and transitional justice have a long, integrated history, GIJTR radically augments its impact by explicitly connecting truth-telling to the correction of revisionist narratives during ongoing conflict.
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GIJTR’s Impact In Depth: External Spheres and Actors
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