A/HRC/45/45 53. Despite the undeniable legal successes of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which were supplemented by the punitive measures taken by the War Crimes Chamber in Bosnia and Herzegovina and other national courts, it has not been possible to change the narrative established by the propaganda machines set up during the war in the societies of the former Yugoslavia or to curb denialism and hate speech, all of which are being vigorously echoed today. 54. One of the main lessons learned from the functioning of the Tribunal was that “the idea that simply flooding the public with technical information on the transitional justice mechanism’s mandate, procedures and activities is sufficient to … create reservoirs of popular support is sheer fantasy.” 30 It was not until six years after the Tribunal’s establishment that an outreach office was set up, and it would take even longer for that office to have a permanent presence on the ground from which to carry out its work in the republics of the former Yugoslavia. The toxic political culture there is still resistant to change, which is why truth commissions and courts must not isolate themselves from other mechanisms required to engage meaningfully with society. 55. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa was established when the democratization process was already under way in that country. Its immense merit lay in its ability to project and imagine a different future, making the act of addressing the crimes of apartheid an indispensable step in transforming race relations within South African society. The Commission’s approach was not technical but political, in the best sense of the word, and this enabled it to rally a sufficiently broad range of supporters around it, including victims’ groups, the media, politicians, academics, trade unionists and others, to the point where this positive dynamic attracted and held everyone’s attention. However, the Commission did not tackle head-on the issue of structural violence linked to the policy of apartheid, and its work was not accompanied by the prosecution and conviction of the perpetrators of atrocity crimes, leaving the victims without justice. 56. Justice alone, like the absence of justice, is not sufficient for the requirements of memory. These two examples show that memorialization must be part of a comprehensive transitional justice process in which the participants effectively address all components without losing sight of the goal of establishing democracy and a culture of peace. Those who lead transitional justice processes must form alliances with different civil society actors to help change a toxic political culture of violence, confrontation and marginalization. In order to make a useful contribution to the ownership of memory work, transitional justice processes must move away from a purely technocratic approach and forge bonds with civil society. 57. The Nuremberg trials held immediately after the Second World War did not transform German society on their own. That purpose could not have been accomplished without the additional trials held by the German courts from the 1960s onward and, subsequently, the thousands of books that were published, the thousands of student visits to concentration camps, and the dozens of documentaries and television drama series that were produced about the Holocaust. All this was essential to the task of recognizing the crimes committed by the Nazis and of democratically transforming society. B. Good practices 58. Memorialization is a long-term process to which other tools of transitional justice can contribute. Its success partly depends on whether the authorities in charge of the public space adopt and implement policies on memory that represent different points of view and foster good collaboration with civil society, whose actions mobilize groups of people, launch initiatives and debates and facilitate the taking of ownership by the public. 59. One very fruitful approach to memorialization is to focus on understanding the mechanisms of oppression and dehumanization that always precede large-scale violence, 30 10 Institute for Integrated Transitions, “Changing the Narrative: The Role of Communications in Transitional Justice”, 2019, available at https://www.ifit-transitions.org/publications/majorpublications-briefings/changing-the-narrative-the-role-of-communications-in-transitionaljustice/changing-the-narrative-en.pdf/view. GE.20-09155