• To promote national reconciliation and conflict resolution by discovering the truth of what happened during the conflict and supporting public acknowledgement of crimes committed.
• To deter further abuses by prosecuting war criminals and by monitoring current activities.
• To establish or support reforms of the national system to address past human rights abuses, war crimes, and/or impunity during critical stages of the transition.
• To support the development or strengthening of rule of law channels and mechanisms to prevent or mitigate violations of human rights.

• Disseminate information on war crimes tribunal processes.
• Provide funding and technical assistance to help initiate the creation of an international tribunal.
• Fund international human rights monitoring efforts to collect evidence and testimony for international tribunals.
• Provide funding for documentation and discussion of war crimes.
• Provide technical assistance to ministry of justice to develop genocide law.
• Fund grants for assessments or studies of legal reform possibilities.
• Sponsor national debates and conferences on constitutional reform.
• Support training for human rights monitors.
• Support collection and documentation of human rights abuses.
• Fund resource centers to bring together members of society involved in human rights and legal issues.
• Support legal challenges to government abuse of power.
• Support under-resourced court systems and investigation units.

OTI managed a program in Rwanda that disseminated information on the International War Crimes Tribunal (ICTR). OTI's grantee was the only news organization that covered the Tribunal in English, the language spoken by many Tutsis, on a daily basis. All of the original ICTR-related articles and analysis pieces were carried by Africa News Service and Africa News Online, which distributed them to more than fifty newspapers around Africa.

Two decades of political turmoil and a violent insurgency left thousands of Peruvians dead or missing and unaccounted for. In 2001, Peru's government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to investigate human rights abuses. OTI provided technical assistance and training to TRC members and staff, as well as to NGOs that work in coordination with the TRC. OTI also helped support media advisors and activities designed to ensure that the TRC's impact was maximized. For instance, OTI supported the production of a manual on effective investigation of mass graves, which was provided to judges and prosecutors seeking to interpret evidence from human remains in Ayacucho, the central Andean region most affected by political violence.