Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation
The Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation (IHJR) is a nonprofit, educational organization located in The Hague, The Netherlands. The IHJR was founded in 2004 as a project of the Salzburg Global Seminar by Elazar Barkan (professor and co-director of the Center for Human Rights at Columbia University) and Timothy W. Ryback (deputy secretary general of the Académie Diplomatique Internationale in Paris). In 2008 the IHJR became an independent organization and settled in The Hague. The IHJR continues to work in partnership with the Salzburg Global Seminar.[1] Under Dutch law, the IHJR is a "stichting" (non-profit foundation) eligible to receive charitable donations. The IHJR is also incorporated in the State of New York as a nonprofit organization.[2]
Vision and mission
The IHJR assumes that many ethnic and nationalist conflicts today are rooted in unresolved historical disputes and injustices. Such events are often misunderstood and manipulated to serve political ends. Patriotic histories and nationalistic myths often serve public propaganda to fuel prejudice, ethnic hatred and aggressive nationalist sentiments. The IHJR believes that reconciliation, tolerance and understanding of "the other" can be promoted by confronting and overcoming distortions of historical reality. To achieve this, the IHJR engages respected scholars and public opinion leaders from opposing sides of a conflict to work in cooperation to create and disseminate shared historical narratives that provide reliable facts and commentary as a basis for public debate and discussion. In doing so, the institute and participants in its projects hope to contribute to laying the groundwork for stable peace. In 2007, the IHJR helped local scholars from the former Yugoslavia establish the Center for History, Democracy and Reconciliation in Novi Sad, Serbia.[3]
Executive Committee
The Executive Committee of the IHJR is chaired by Richard J. Goldstone, co-chairman of the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association and former chief prosecutor of the United Nations International criminal tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.