Transitional Justice

Argentina is a leader in the use of human rights trials showing that it is possible for a State to transition from a human rights violator to a human rights protector. A military junta ruled Argentina between 1976-1983 during a period that came to be known as the dirty war. The junta suspended democracy, eliminated basic rights and repressed those who opposed its rule, including by abducting, disappearing, torturing, and sometimes killing political opponents. It is estimated that 30,000 people were victimized by the military regime including up to 10,000 people killed or permanently disappeared. 

In 1985, 9 former commanders in chief of the armed forces were put on trial for human rights violations including kidnapping, torture, forced disappearance and murder. The two most powerful leaders - General Jorge Videla and Admiral Emilio Massera - were sentenced to life in prison and 3 other leaders were given prison sentences ranging from 4 to 17 years. The trials were the first prosecutions of former heads of state in Latin America.

Apartheid - a system of institutionalized racial segregation - was the official state policy of South Africa between 1948 and 1994. The white South African government created a racial cast system that codified white minority rule over all other racial groups. People categorized as African (Black), Coloured (of mixed racial heritage), and Indian (descended from South Asian immigrants) were denied their fundamental human rights. This system of racial oppression was enforced through unjust laws and policies and policed by brutal violence. 

Apartheid is defined in international law as inhumane acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them. These inhumane acts include murder, torture, arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, rape, and other crimes intended to destroy and exclude racial groups and deny them their rights.

Apartheid ended in South Africa through a negotiated political settlement after decades of armed struggle. The new Constitution established South Africa as a multiracial democracy. Transitional justice would be guided by the African principle of ubuntu - the idea that all of humanity is connected. The Government of National Unity created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1996-2003) to address reconciliation between racial groups. It collected testimony from more than 21,000 people in private and public hearings. It provided a forum for victims and perpetrators from all sides to face one another and discover each other’s humanity in an environment designed to foster truth telling. Many hearings were broadcast live on national radio and were covered extensively by print and television media. The final report which documented the truth of apartheid and proposed recommendations for reform, filled more than seven volumes. The South African TRC is among the most well-known and influential truth commissions.

In December 2025, the Trump Administration launched “Operation Metro Surge,” an unprecedented deployment of nearly 4,000 federal immigration agents to Minnesota in what the government described as the largest immigration enforcement action in U.S. history. In practice, immigration officers from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) , Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), engaged in unlawful activity and widespread abuse of human rights. A June 2026 report by Human Rights Watch, A Manufactured Crisis: Minnesota Communities Terrorized by the Federal Government, details how federal agents engaged in widespread abuse including two unlawful killings, racial profiling, unlawful detentions, excessive force, and abusive detention conditions, and how the operation disrupted access to health care, education, work, and food. The report also details how Minnesotans who resisted these violations of their rights were further subjected to abuse. 

On March 25, 2026, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz issued executive order 26-05 establishing the Governor’s Council to Record the Truth of Operation Metro Surge and Operation PARRIS on Minnesotans - called the Minnesota Truth Council for short. The Minnesota Truth Council is an independent, non-partisan body that will create a comprehensive historical record of survivor and witness experiences and produce a report with findings and recommendations for legislative and policy reform. The goal is to: prevent the recurrence of unlawful or harmful conduct by federal agents; document the harms and abuses experienced by Minnesota residents, businesses, schools, childcare providers, and local communities; and document how Minnesotans came together, supported one another, and persevered. The Advocates for Human Rights is the implementing partner of the Minnesota Truth Council and is responsible for story collection. Learn more about the Truth Council.

The Shoes on the Danube Bank is a memorial that was erected in 2005 on the East bank of the Danube River in Budapest, Hungary. The memorial honors the thousands of Hungarian Jews who were shot and killed along the Danube River during World War II and the Nazi Holocaust, by the Hungarian fascist and pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party. The victims were forced to remove their shoes before being shot so that they could be resold by the militia after the massacre. The shoes in the memorial are intentionally the style of those worn in the 1940s. 

Located in Montgomery, Alabama, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice is dedicated to the legacy of Black Americans who were enslaved, terrorized by lynching, humiliated by racial segregation, and presumed guilty and dangerous. The memorial remembers more than 4,400 Black people killed in racial terror lynchings between 1877 and 1950. Racial terror lynchings were violent and public acts of torture aimed to traumatize and terrorize Black people throughout the United States. These lynchings left thousands dead and inflicted intense trauma on survivors, witnesses, and the African American community. They also contributed to the social, political, and economic marginalization of Black people. By publicly confronting the truth of American history, the memorial aims to move the country towards recovery and reconciliation.

In 1988, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act which apologized for the forced detention of Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II and created a fund to compensate living survivors. Learn more about the personal impact of Japanese American internment from movie star and human rights activist, George Takei, in his talk, “Why I love a country that once betrayed me.”

In 2008, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution putting forth an official apology to African-Americans for slavery and ‘Jim Crow’ era discriminatory laws. In 2009, the U.S. Senate followed suit, apologizing specifically for the brutality and inhumanity of slavery in the United States. These resolutions marked the first time the U.S. federal government made public and formal apologies for slavery and discriminatory treatment toward African-Americans. Notably, the Senate resolution specified that it could not be used as a basis for restitution or reparations.