Summary

In this report, the Special Rapporteur addresses the increasing need to identify and examine ways in which transitional justice measures and practitioners can better perform their work in the context of internal displacement, engage with internally displaced persons and respond to their justice claims. The Special Rapporteur also provides recommendations for addressing the challenges in including internally displaced persons in transitional justice processes and for practitioners, researchers and policymakers from both fields to collaborate with each other.

Transitional justice constitutes a response to the legacies of serious human rights and international humanitarian law violations, and more guidance is therefore needed regarding the role of Governments, United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations and internally displaced persons themselves in achieving accountability for past injustices specifically related to internal displacement. These include the injustice of the detriment which internal displacement represents in its own right, as well as human rights violations that occur prior to, during or after the displacement, such as the destruction of homes, the killing of family members or discrimination.

In this report, the Special Rapporteur highlights the role of transitional justice in the prevention of forced and arbitrary displacement and in support to durable solutions, including through reparation programmes, and the importance of ensuring the participation of internally displaced persons in transitional justice processes.

The report is intended to serve as a stocktaking/guidance tool with the objective of operationalizing existing frameworks and guidelines and providing technical assistance for their implementation by all stakeholders to ensure that transitional justice measures are an inherent part of durable solutions for internally displaced persons.