“It is now important for Belarus to think about the next step.” Concept for Accountability for Repression in Belarus published

Con­cept for Account­abil­i­ty for Repres­sion in Belarus, pre­pared by the Office’s legal team, has been pub­lished on Svet­lana Tsikhanouskaya’s web­site.

The Con­cept address­es account­abil­i­ty of pub­lic offi­cials as part of a broad­er tran­si­tion­al jus­tice process. It out­lines how a future demo­c­ra­t­ic Belarus could inves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute gross human rights vio­la­tions com­mit­ted after 2020.

The doc­u­ment describes inter­na­tion­al stan­dards, the role of those affect­ed, the right to truth and repa­ra­tion, and the need to pre­serve evi­dence even before a demo­c­ra­t­ic tran­si­tion takes place. It also exam­ines avail­able account­abil­i­ty mech­a­nisms, includ­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court, uni­ver­sal juris­dic­tion, and the work of the Unit­ed Nations and the Inter­na­tion­al Account­abil­i­ty Plat­form for Belarus (IAPB).

Fol­low­ing a demo­c­ra­t­ic tran­si­tion, pri­or­i­ty should be giv­en to nation­al courts. How­ev­er, for the most sig­nif­i­cant cas­es, an inter­na­tion­al com­po­nent may be appro­pri­ate, such as a hybrid tri­bunal or inter­na­tion­al­ized pro­ceed­ings with­in the judi­cial sys­tem of Belarus.

Review the Con­cept for Account­abil­i­ty for Repres­sion in Belarus: Belaru­sian, Russ­ian, and Eng­lish.