[1] Through criminal and civil litigation, CJA works to create a record of truth and refine human rights jurisprudence, while promoting the principles of universal jurisdiction and the rule of law.

[2] In August 1998, The Center for Justice & Accountability filed its first case, Mehinovic v. Vuckovic, on behalf of a Bosnian torture and detention camp survivor.

The Dodd Prize is awarded biannually by the University of Connecticut to an individual or group who has made a significant effort to advance the cause of international justice and global human rights.

"With All Deliberate Speed: Civil Human Rights Litigation as Tool for Social Change")[9] Underpinning CJA's mission is the principle of universal jurisdiction.

Since the 1998 prosecution of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, Spain has adopted universal jurisdiction over cases of severe violations of international human rights law.

This claim is derived from the principle of command responsibility, the doctrine of complicity which provided the legal foundation for the Nuremberg Trials against senior Nazi war criminals.

[14] Command responsibility is now an established theory of liability, thanks in part to the body of case law that has developed around CJA's litigation and the casework of other organizations pursuing similar strategies, notably the Center for Constitutional Rights and EarthRights International.

[15] Much of CJA's litigation and advocacy work is performed with survivors from countries still struggling to transition from an authoritarian past to a stable democratic present.

Transitional justice denotes the process by which societies address the crimes of prior regimes as they move from a period of violent conflict or oppression toward peace, democracy and the rule of law.

The suit alleged that Qi had authority over police forces in Beijing who had carried out brutal repressive measures against Falun Gong practitioners.

In January 2006, the 11th Circuit court upheld the $54.6 million jury verdict on appeal and in July 2006, Defendant Vides Casanova was forced to relinquish over $300,000 of his own assets.

[29] In September 2004, Judge Oliver Wanger declared that the assassination was a crime against humanity and ordered Saravia to pay $10 million to the plaintiff, a relative of the Archbishop.

[31] In 2005, a Memphis federal jury found Colonel Nicolás Carranza, the former Vice-Minister of Defense of El Salvador, liable for overseeing torture and extrajudicial killings and ordered him to pay $6 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

[34] In 2006, a new legal team led by CJA began working with attorneys from Guatemala, the Netherlands, Spain and the U.S. to develop evidence on the Mayan genocide.

[35] Jean v. Dorélien (The High Command and the Raboteau Massacre) In 2003, CJA filed U.S. state and federal cases against Colonel Carl Dorélien—a Haitian officer who held command responsibility for the April 22, 1994 massacre in a pro-democracy neighborhood in Gonaïves and for the torture of the union activist Lexius Cajuste Dorélien's presence in the United States became widely known when he won $3.2 million in the Florida lottery in 1997.

[42] Later in 2006, the Attorney General of Honduras approached CJA to assist in a criminal prosecution of López Grijalba based on evidence produced in the U.S. civil case.

To initiate the prosecution, CJA trained 80 Honduran prosecutors on bringing successful human rights cases in national courts in December 2007.

The suit alleges that Samantar bore command responsibility for a host of abuses carried out by his subordinates, including torture, extrajudicial killing and war crimes.

Plaintiffs in the case are members of the Isaaq clan who suffered human rights abuses committed personally by Tokeh or by soldiers under his direct command.

A Cuban-born former Venezuelan intelligence agent and paid CIA operative in the covert during the 1960s, Carriles is implicated in several anti-Castro terrorist attacks including the 1976 bombing that killed Persuad along with 73 other people.

[60] At the invitation of the Honduran Attorney General, CJA conducted a training session, Prosecuting Human Rights Crimes in National Courts, on December 4–6, 2007, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

The training brought together 80 Honduran prosecutors with a faculty of legal practitioners from Latin America, Spain and the U.S.[61] The groundbreaking human rights trial against former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori began in December 2007 in Lima.