A/HRC/36/50/Add.1 the past, academics have analysed the root causes of the regime and memorials are common fixtures in the landscape. 11. The end of communism in Eastern Europe spurred a distinct approach to transitional justice, focusing on accessing secret surveillance archives that predecessor regimes had created and vetting State officials. In East Germany, as the Berlin Wall fell and staff at the archives of the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) burned and shredded files, citizens occupied Stasi buildings to preserve the documentation. Subsequently, the German Government created a Commission to maintain the archives and to open them to the public. Additionally, in the former Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland, successor regimes developed laws and policies to exclude people linked to the communist regime from government or civil service through policies known as “lustration”.5 12. The collapse of communism in Europe led to devastating conflicts in Yugoslavia as the country broke apart. In 1993, the United Nations Security Council reacted by creating the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. 6 Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia have forged their own, often difficult paths in adopting transitional justice approaches. The region has, however, been the site of many positive developments, including the use of cutting-edge forensic approaches to identify the remains of 70 per cent of the estimated 40,000 people missing because of the conflict. 7 Civil society groups developed an innovative campaign (which has not yet born fruit) for a truth commission that was regional, rather than national, in scope. Regrettably, a comprehensive approach to reparation for victims of the conflict has lagged behind. 13. The European Court of Human Rights has played a role in pushing States to uphold their obligations to victims. As one example, the Court has established jurisprudence on the procedural obligation of States to investigate serious crimes based on cases from Northern Ireland.8 C. Africa 14. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established through the negotiated end to apartheid in South Africa in 1994. While the Commission benefited from the experiences of Argentina and Chile, it innovated beyond those models. It is the only truth commission to include an amnesty-for-truth model (a highly conditioned amnesty by design). It integrated a promise of reparations (alas, not completely satisfied), and, importantly, provided a public platform for victims, not the least through highly successful public hearings. Ultimately, the expectation that the amnesty process would generate significant information was not met. Similarly, the idea that those whose amnesty applications had been denied would be liable for prosecution (7,112 applications filed but only 849 amnesties granted) has been emptied of force because of the reluctance to initiate prosecutions.9 Nonetheless, the model has been extraordinarily influential. Kenya, Liberia and Sierra Leone have adopted elements of this approach. 15. Another regional innovation concerns the integration of local and traditional justice in countries like Rwanda and Uganda. Rwanda developed the Gacaca courts, a system of more than 12,000 community-level tribunals that functioned from 2005 to 2012 to deal with all but the most serious crimes committed during the country’s 1994 genocide. Gacaca filled a gap left by the decimation of the legal system during the genocide, combining traditional conflict resolution measures with elements of modern judicial procedure. 10 5 6 7 8 9 10 Alexander Mayer-Rieckh and Pablo de Greiff, Justice as Prevention (New York, Social Science Research Council, 2007). See www.icty.org/en/cases/key-figures-cases. International Commission on Missing Persons, “Annual report 2015”, p. 7. McKerr v. the United Kingdom (Application No. 28883/95). See www.justice.gov.za/trc/amntrans/index.htm. Rwanda, “Gacaca Courts in Rwanda” (June 2012). 5