21 January 2020
Tania Bonilla Matiz is a Professional Advisor at the Special Jurisdiction for Peace – a judicial institution created by Colombia’s Peace Agreement to investigate, prosecute and sanction crimes committed in the context of the armed conflict. She is currently supporting the Judicial Panel for Determination of Legal Situations, deciding upon the transitional benefits afforded to civilians, members of the security forces, and other public officials who were involved in the conflict.
Tania graduated from the Master of Advanced Studies in Transitional Justice, Human Rights and the Rule of Law (MTJ) in 2018.
The programme offers a variety of subjects that address the main challenges in countries that are facing political transitions. As such, it brings together students from all over the world and with a great diversity of backgrounds who can speak from their own experiences. For that reason, every discussion is an opportunity to escape from common transitional justice notions.
The teaching was great mainly because professors are leading experts in their areas. The debates always connected with what is happening in many contexts, so the majority of exercises had a clear purpose and were mirrored in reality.
My best memory of the programme was the study-trip to Nuremberg: I could share with my classmates the debates about human rights atrocities in a city that set a benchmark in the way to address these and provide justice to victims. It was also an opportunity to visit historical sites that seemed quite remote from the Latin American context.
I think that the MTJ degree allowed me to get my current position in the Special Jurisdiction for Peace. The Geneva Academy and its academic programmes are recognized internationally as a guarantee of qualified knowledge in the area of human rights and transitional justice.
I use what I learned in class on a daily basis, especially when it comes to proposing creative alternatives – combining the paradigms of restorative and retributive justice – to deal with past human rights abuses in the Colombian context.
YES! I consider this master as one of the most accurate decisions I’ve ever made!
Geneva Academy
At a meeting co-hosted with the Paris Human Rights Center, members of UN Treaty Bodies responsible for individual communications discussed the implementation of a coherent approach to dealing with communications brought by individuals who seek justice at the international level.
Geneva Academy
Dr Harper shed light on military technologies’ potential impact on human rights and addressed the risks associated with the cross-application of these technologies and the related need for regulation.
OUP
In this book launch, Patryk Labuda will discuss with leading experts and practitioners his new book International Criminal Tribunals and Domestic Accountability. In The Court’s Shadow.
Adobe
The Annual Conference of the Geneva Human Rights Platform will take place in New York to explore the links between Geneva and New York, the relevance of Geneva's outputs in New York debates, and the implications for human rights.
ICRC
This online short course focuses on the specific issues that arise in times of armed conflict regarding the respect, protection and fulfilment of human rights. It addresses key issues like the applicability of human rights in times of armed conflict; the possibilities of restricting human rights under systems of limitations and derogations; and the extraterritorial application of human rights law.
ICC-CPI
This online short course reviews the origins of international criminal law, its relationship with the international legal order including the UN Security Council and its coexistence with national justice institutions. The scope of international crimes – genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression – is considered alongside initiatives to expand or add to these categories.
UN Photo
This research aimed at taking stock of and contributing to a better understanding of the above-mentioned challenges to the principle of universality of human rights while also questioning their validity.
Adobe
This initiative wishes to contribute to better and more coordinated implementation, reporting and follow-up of international human rights recommendations through a global study on digital human rights tracking tools and databases.
Geneva Academy
Geneva Academy