Civil Society Programme
Supporting civil society organizations to power up the whole justice ecosystem and promote survivors’ agency in justice processes
CIVIL SOCIETY PROGRAMME EXPERT DEPLOYMENTS IN 2024
The Issue
Civil society organizations (CSO) play a critical role in the promotion of justice and accountability for international crimes and serious violations of human rights, especially through documentation and advocacy efforts. As CSOs have professionalized their procedures over time and considering that international and national justice actors now heavily rely on CSOs to support their own justice and accountability work, CSOs’ need for highly technical expertise witnessed a drastic surge. Due to their ability to build survivors networks to ensure the participation of victims and survivors in justice processes, CSOs have proved themselves to be formidable allies in international justice and accountability efforts.
The Memory House in Banjul, The Gambia, a project from our Gambian CSO partner ANEKED. Credits: JRR.
Our Approach
Our Civil Society Programme provides highly technical expertise to CSOs wishing to buttress their documentation and advocacy efforts in relation to serious international crimes and violations of human rights. We work with professional local and international CSOs to further justice and accountability efforts led at the national level, including under the principle of universal jurisdiction, and the international level through UN mandated investigative mechanisms or treaty bodies.
After receiving a request for support, Justice Rapid Response conducts a thorough vetting process and assessment for each CSO based on a standard set of criteria.
Our Impact
Seeking Justice for the Yazidi in The Lafarge Case
On December 2023, 400 Yazidi-Americans filed a lawsuit in the United States against French cement and construction conglomerate Lafarge S.A. under the Anti-Terrorism Act for conspiring to provide support to the “terrorist and genocidal campaign” conducted by ISIS against the Yazidi population. This is a landmark civil case brought against a private enterprise by the Yazidi victims and survivors who are seeking to obtain justice and financial compensation for the harms suffered. This filing was supported by many organizations, including Iraq-based Yazda, which facilitated the gathering of all of the 400 victims’ interviews. Demonstrating JRR’s long-term commitment to Yazda’s essential work and to promoting the rights and access to justice for victims and survivors, JRR has been working with Yazda since 2017 to strengthen its capacity in documenting gross human rights violations and international crimes. Over the years, JRR provided, among others, child rights and legal expertise as well as sexual and genderbased investigators to Yazda and will continue doing so to build the capacity of CSOs and contribute to empowering all actors of the justice system.
Lalish is an important Yazidi holy suite in Iraqi Kurdistan. Credits: Adobe Stock.
The Human Rights Council, Geneva. Credits: Adobe Stock.
Supporting CSOs to Engage with International Mechanisms to End Gender-based Violence
In August 2024, a core group of UN special procedures issued a joint statement to draw the Mexican Government’s attention to the current situation of violence against women, girls, and adolescents in the state of Guerrero, which points to the existence of a practice of enforced disappearance of women and girls.
The response of the United Nations Special Procedures was prompted by a communication sent by IDHEAS Strategic Litigation in Human Rights, the Mexican Forensic Anthropology Team (EMAF), and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), who, with the technical support of Justice Rapid Response (JRR), conducted a documentation mission in February 2023 on the disappearances of women and girls in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. This followed the presentation of a report which included a specific gender perspective titled «Disappearances of Women and Gender-Based Violence in Guerrero: The Overlooked Side of the War on Drugs» during the 2023 session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
Our Partners
The Civil Society Programme has over a dozen partnerships with civil society organizations. Here are just three of these longstanding partnerships.
Yazda
Through its partnership with Yazda since 2017, JRR has been working to strengthen its capacity in documenting gross human rights violations and international crimes. Over the years, JRR provided, among others, child rights and legal expertise as well as sexual and gender-based investigators.
Korea Future
JRR’s experts have been working with Korea Future to strengthen its documentation methodologies to meet international standards in relation to its accountability efforts, including its documentation of sexual and gender-based violence committed in the North Korean penal system.
ANEKED
Since 2021, JRR has been working with the African Network Against Extrajudicial Killings and Enforced Disappearances, a Gambia based CSO. JRR helped strengthen ANEKED’s capacity to seek justice and accountability for victims and survivors of the former Jammeh regime.
Office
Rue Dr-Alfred-Vincent 10
1201 Geneva, Switzerland
Call Us
Telephone : +41 (0)22 544 29 00