TORONTO, November 26, 2003 -- Some of the leading proponents of civil society will gather at York University for an international conference Thursday, Dec. 4 to Saturday, Dec. 6 to examine ways of ending impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The three-day conference, Searching for Justice: Comprehensive Action in the Face of Atrocities, will bring together scholars, heads of NGOs, human rights activists and parliamentarians to discuss issues relating to accountability trials, truth commissions, reparations and institutional reform. Participants have been invited from every region of the world, from such countries as Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Burundi, South Africa, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Peru, Slovenia, Afghanistan, Lebanon as well as Canada and the United States. The conference is sponsored by the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies and the Government of Canada.

"York University is bringing together some of the leading international experts to compare the experiences and remedies invoked in different countries that have experienced or responded to atrocities," said conference organizer Prof. Sharryn Aiken of York’s Centre for Refugee Studies and Queen’s University. "Our aim is to develop mechanisms and principles to achieve a more comprehensive system of justice for perpetrators as well as victims of atrocity."

The conference will be launched Thursday evening with a special panel considering Canadian as well as international approaches to redressing massive human rights violations.

On Friday, the conference will begin with a series of panel presentations examining and evaluating the various responses to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity employed throughout the world, with leading practitioners, policy makers and scholars. Practical consideration of why a certain process was chosen, whether others were considered, how successful the chosen process has been and which elements were effective or not will be an important dimension of these presentations. Panels are:

• Accountability Trials: an overview of various types of trials including international courts and tribunals, universal jurisdiction trials, as well as domestic criminal and civil trials including immigration remedies;

• Truth Commissions and other truth-seeking mechanisms: an overview of the various mechanisms and their effectiveness;

• Reparations: a discussion on reparations of a rehabilitative, symbolic, restorative and compensatory nature;

• Institutional Reform: which will examine issues such as establishing new institutions to achieve accountability, passing legal and constitutional reforms to prevent human rights violations, vetting abusers from public institutions, and implementing human rights training programs for law enforcement officials;

• Making Transitional Justice Strategies More Effective: a discussion of the inter-connections between the four themes of accountability, engaging critical issues and challenges addressed in previous panels.

The conference will culminate in a report to be drafted on Saturday focussing on the key lessons learned in the field of transitional justice, the gaps in available research as well as the possibilities for further networking and coordinated follow up.

The conference, which will be held at York University's Osgoode Hall Law School (Founders College on Saturday), located at 4700 Keele Street, is open to the public and the media on Thursday and Friday; invited participants and media only on Saturday.

-30-

For more information including registration, the agenda and conference papers, visit: www.yorku.ca/remedies.