University of Toronto Mississauga students lead efforts to understand justice in global conflicts

From left: Pedro Andrade, Fatimah Ahsan, Rohit Bahal, Nicole Fernando, Geoff Dancy, Joseph Mangin, Mary Kazek, and Farah Radwan are among the researchers working on the Transitional Justice Evaluation Tools project (supplied photo) - A group of students at the University of Toronto Mississauga are at the forefront of efforts to understand transitional justice across the globe - a scholarly field that confronts how to pursue accountability for human rights violations in the context of authoritarianism and violent political conflict. Working with  Geoff Dancy , associate professor in University of Toronto Mississauga's department of political science, nine students are collecting data on criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, legal amnesties and reparations policies in all the regions of the world. Their goal is "to provide a comprehensive database for academic research, and to predict human rights trends internationally," says team member  Pedro Andrade , a fourth-year undergraduate student from Brazil. Dancy, post-doctoral researcher  Oskar Timo Thoms  and the group of undergraduate students received a $3-million grant from Global Affairs Canada - administered jointly between Harvard University and University of Toronto - for their Transitional Justice Evaluation Tools (TJET) project. TJET's student researchers have developed a wide range of expertise while working on the project. Mary Kazek , an undergraduate student studying international affairs and economics, has become a go-to authority on criminal proceedings against Chilean military and intelligence officers who were responsible for extensive human rights violations during the Pinochet regime.