Roundtable: Victim-Defined Justice: Grassroots Activism, Resistance and Participation to Achieve Meaningful Change
Habib Nassar, Director of Policy and Research, Impunity Watch
Dr. Louis Monroy Santander, Researcher Bsocial Colombia
Ahmad Helmi, Co-Founder and Manager of Ta’afi Initiative, member of the Truth and Justice Charter
Dr. Christalla Yakinthou, Lecturer at the University of Birmingham
Galuh Wandita, Director of AJAR
This panel is designed to center the lived expertise of rightsholders and victims of gross political violence and human rights abuses. Notably, these groups have often been largely excluded from meaningful roles in existing conflict/post-conflict justice and other political processes. The panel will be informed by a global study coordinated by Impunity Watch in partnership with the University of Birmingham, Asia Justice and Rights (AJAR) in Indonesia, BSocial Col in Colombia and the Université Libre des Pays Grands Lacs (ULPGL Goma). This study focuses on six countries—Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Indonesia, Syria, and Tunisia—where survivors have actively shaped, re-shaped, and created opportunities for the restitution of rights and resisting violence, impunity and re-victimization. By foregrounding these experiences, the panel aims to serve as a springboard for a broad and inclusive discussion on how ‘local’ and victim-survivor-driven initiatives can decrease power asymmetries in efforts to create space for disenfranchised victims and reform potentially unequal and unjust processes.
Chair: Dr. Habib Nassar
