Justice and healing are too often treated as separate tracks in atrocity response. Justice is typically framed around legal accountability—prosecutions, trials, and other formal mechanisms—while healing is treated as an afterthought, addressed through separate programs or left to come later. This division can overlook the ways that justice itself can contribute to healing, and how healing can shape what justice should look like.

We formed ARC because we see healing and justice as deeply interconnected. They are like two trunks of the same tree: distinct, but rooted in the same ground and ultimately sustaining the same whole. Each can strengthen the other, and neither is complete on its own. Together, they provide a foundation for individual and social wellbeing, resilience, and peace.

This understanding shapes everything about how we work. We focus on creating the conditions to allow survivors to claim their own agency and choice in the justice process as a way of subverting the structures and systems that caused the original harms experienced. We see justice as a process, rather than an outcome, and place equal weight on what comes before and after official justice mechanisms. We think about ways to address the collective consequences of mass violence on families and communities, and on safety and trust within societies. And we are continuing to wrestle with what holding justice alongside healing really means.