Transitional & Restorative Justice: Rebuilding Society after Mass Violence

After the guns have gone silent, the transition from conflict to post-conflict is often just as complex and debated as the conflict itself. Seeking accountability and reparations for victims of conflict-related violence is a key piece in helping to rebuild communities that have experienced a collective trauma. Many mechanisms apart from criminal justice can help achieve this goal, including transitional and restorative justice.

From truth commissions and amnesties to restorative justice tribunals, this event will discuss the considerations that go into the creation of these post-conflict instruments, looking at their effectiveness and at the political and legal implications arising from their use. This event will also pay significant focus to the relationship between IHL and the use of amnesties in post-conflict settings and whether justice for individual victims of a conflict is always a State priority.

Guest Speaker: Christian Jorgensen is an IHL Legal Advisor for the American Red Cross-National Headquarters and the Program Manager for the American Red Cross IHL Dissemination project. His early professional and academic work focused on public international law with an emphasis on International Human Rights Law and Refugee Law. Before pursuing his law degree Christian assisted in asylum cases in the UK under the direction of Dr. Barbara Harrel-Bond, OBE in Oxford, UK. Following his time in Oxford, he worked as a political and legal analyst for a Berlin-based media-startup focusing much of his reporting on the 2017 French presidential election. He later worked in Nicosia, Cyprus as a researcher on the topic of nationality rights and statelessness as well as coauthoring a Pedological Guide for the European Union’s NICeR Project (Nouvelles Approches pour l’Intégration Culturelle des Jeunes Réfugiés).

Christian is a past international legal fellow for Dejusticia, a legal think-tank based in Bogotá, Colombia, and currently serves as co-editor of the monthly refugee legal newsletter, Rights in Exile. He holds a BA in Political Science (University of Iowa), an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (DePaul University), and a Juris Doctor degree (University of New Mexico School of Law).