Atrocity Response Coalition for Justice (ARC)

Together, we are bending the arc of history towards justice, healing, and lasting pace.

Arch of Freedom of the Ukrainian People. Unsplash.

The Atrocity Response Coalition for Justice (ARC) is a group of survivor leaders, advocates, trauma clinicians, data scientists, researchers, lawyers, and former policy-makers, united in a shared mission to change how societies respond to atrocities.

We believe that atrocity response measures must pursue healing and justice together, and recognize survivors as leaders, experts, and authors of what comes next.

ARC works to translate the principle of “survivor-centered” into a reality in how justice processes are designed, how trauma is addressed, how data is gathered, and how survivors shape the decisions that affect their lives, their communities, and their futures.

Centering survivors in atrocity response.

Demonstration of Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires Argentina Buenos Aires, Argentina (David Berkowitz: December 2010)

Demonstration of Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Buenos Aires, Argentina. David Berkowitz, 2010, CC BY 2.0.

Partner with us.

  • A man-made cycle of violence and trauma.

    Conflict and abuse are increasing around the world. The fallout spreads across borders and generations through further violence and suffering.

  • Response systems that keep failing.

    Existing atrocity response options consistently fail for core two reasons. Justice, healing, and long-term recovery are fragmented, under-resourced, or missing altogether. And the people most affected—those who can actually drive lasting change—are shut out of deciding how the world responds: survivors themselves.

  • Business as usual is no longer an option.

    ARC believes that it’s time for survivors to lead, and not just participate in, changing the way the world responds to atrocities. ARC is creating the conditions for survivors to claim their agency and voice in this process.

Strengthening survivor leadership.

Many survivor leaders around the world are already building pathways towards justice, healing, and peace. ARC offers expertise, relationships, resources, and solidarity to support these leaders as they tackle the challenges they identify as most important, and to sustain their work over the long term.

Demonstrators gather in Syria carrying portraits of missing relatives and placards calling for freedom, justice, and the immediate release of political detainees. Photo by Salah Darwish.

Changing the systems around them.

ARC combines survivor experience with research and cross-disciplinary expertise to help policymakers, donors, and institutions design more effective, trauma-responsive approaches. By supporting survivor leaders to influence these systems, we generate evidence they can't get any other way: what survivors need, and what actually works.

Public hearing session of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) inside the Great Hall of Justice at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands. UN Photo / Andrea Brizzi.

Help build what comes next.

For decades, survivor coalitions have demonstrated the power of collective action in the face of abuse and oppression. Groups like the Khulumani Support Group and in South Africa and the National Network of Families of the Disappeared and Missing Nepal, have shown that survivors don’t just need a voice in the system—they can be one of the most powerful forces for changing it. 

Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to action in the face of oppression and abuse, we believe the arc of history bends toward justice when survivors, and those walking alongside them, bend it— through persistence and collective action even in the most challenging atrocity contexts.

We bring decades of collective expertise to laying the foundations for survivor leaders to identify and pursue meaningful, effective, and viable pathways to healing and justice for atrocities, and to sustain this work without compromising their well-being or safety.

We are building partnerships to advance and sustain our work. We are seeking supporters who can contribute expertise and resources.

Partner with us.