In December 2019, ECC participated in an expert meeting convened by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of non-Recurrence. The meeting was part of research conducted by the Special Rapporteur for his report on Memorialization processes in the context of serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law: the fifth pillar of transitional justice. Several CRN members also contributed to the Special Rapporteur’s research through their written submissions to an open consultation process.
ECC emphasised the importance of casualty records, and the casualty recording process itself, to memorialisation. This is particularly significant where casualty recording initiatives were conducted by the affected communities themselves. There is a clear and important link between casualty recording and the focus of the Special Rapporteur’s report – memorialization in times of conflict, memorialization in post-conflict situations and weaponization of memory in connection with the politicization of social networks.
