A/HRC/45/CRP.4 to provide an official recognition of victims and survivors as rights-holders; acknowledge and redress human rights and international humanitarian law violations and the resulting harm suffered by victims and survivors; and establish measures to prevent the recurrence of similar violations, have deep resonance in a context where intense competition for resources continues to fuel conflict and associated violations and crimes, and to drive rampant corruption and economic crimes. 16. The concept of transitional justice is rooted in established human rights norms, which obligate States to respect and ensure the protection and realisation of: • • • • victims’ right to truth by establishing and promoting mechanisms and processes for clarification of circumstances surrounding human rights and humanitarian law violations, including their underlying causes in order to prevent their recurrence; victims’ right to justice through effective, prompt, thorough, and impartial investigations into allegations of violations of human rights and humanitarian law, and prosecution and punishment of those found culpable; victims’ right to remedies for violations of human rights and humanitarian law and their consequences, including access to adequate, prompt, and effective reparation; and guarantees of non-repetition of gross violations of human rights and serious violations of international humanitarian law. 17. South Sudan is therefore obligated to ensure victims’ access to effective remedies for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law even when they are committed by non-State actors. 18. For more than four decades, countries including South Sudan transitioning from autocracy and conflict have adopted various transitional justice mechanisms to pursue victims’ rights to truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-recurrence of human rights and international humanitarian law violations. These include, inter alia, truth commissions, civil and criminal judicial accountability processes, court-based and administrative reparation programmes, and constitutional, legal, and institutional reforms. 19. Transitional justice, however, does not merely involve the establishment of institutions and programmes. The process of designing and implementing such measures is also essential to the effective realisation of transitional justice goals. Experiences in several contexts demonstrate that transitional justice measures which are deliberately designed and implemented to restore and uphold human rights, including non-discrimination, equality, and due process, can significantly contribute to the cultivation of shared values, social cohesion, healing, and reconciliation; respect for the rule of law; restoration of civic trust and confidence in State institutions; and sustainable human development. Conversely, if mismanaged, transitional justice measures could deepen inequalities, exacerbate tensions in divided societies, and trigger renewed cycles of conflict. 20. Transitional justice measures are, therefore, not an end in themselves, but rather provide a meaningful opportunity to initiate and promote long-term social, political, and economic transformation undergirded by respect for human rights in the aftermath of breakdown in societies resulting from conflict or repression. To that extent, transitional justice, security, development, and reconciliation measures ought to be conceptualised and implemented in an integrated and mutually reinforcing manner, in order to achieve the ultimate goal of sustainable peace. II. Mandate 21. In its resolution 31/20, the Human Rights Council established the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan for a period of one year. The Commission submitted its first report to the Council at its thirty-fourth session (A/HRC/34/63). 22. In its resolution 34/25, the Human Rights Council extended the mandate of the Commission for another year, and requested it to continue to monitor and report on the situation of human rights in South Sudan, to make recommendations to prevent further deterioration of the situation, and to report and provide guidance on transitional justice, including reconciliation. 6