Notice of Funding Opportunity: Belarus and Combating Impunity

Deadline: 25-Jul-22

The Department of State’s Office of Global Criminal Justice (J/GCJ) is seeking applications for its program entitled “Belarus and Combating Impunity” to promote the investigation of human rights abuses and atrocities and the prosecution of individual perpetrators.

GCJ seeks to strengthen accountability mechanisms to investigate and prosecute those responsible for serious international crimes committed during both armed conflict and times of peace (including those involving killings, sexual violence, arbitrary detentions, torture, and missing persons) and to encourage the highest standards in investigations conducted by prosecutors and civil society actors.

GCJ seeks applications for one award that promotes accountability for serious human rights abuses and violations of international criminal law for alleged crimes committed by Belarusian authorities.

Objectives

In the near term, the activities undertaken as part of this Notice of Funding Opportunity will advance a process that may eventually culminate in criminal prosecutions and signal the unacceptability of past and ongoing human rights abuses in Belarus.
Programming may include, but is not limited to, one or more of the following areas:
- Train and educate lawyers, investigators, and other relevant specialists in the highest legal standards in the investigation and prosecution of serious international crimes, including those involving human rights violations, and in the maintenance of documentary evidence in line with relevant international “chain of custody” standards;
- Provide instruction on identifying, analyzing, and building linkage evidence to connect senior officials to any crimes committed by their subordinates;
- Develop the capacity of civil society organizations, lawyers, investigators, and/or other relevant specialists to conduct military analysis that is critical to the identification of perpetrators up and down a chain of command;
- Provide training to lawyers on the building of case files against those allegedly responsible for violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law as well as the filing of criminal complaints in courts that may have jurisdiction over crimes involving such violations or other abuses;
- Specific to Belarus’s complicity in Russia’s war in Ukraine, provide instruction on the collation, preservation, and analysis of evidence of Belarus’s involvement in international crimes in Ukraine; and
- Facilitate general training in witness protection/assistance and trauma sensitivity to those representing/and or working with victims of trauma.

Funding Information

Estimated Length of Project Period: Up to 48 months
Estimated Number of Awards: 1
Estimated Total Program Funding: $1,500,000
Estimated Award Ceiling: $1,500,000
Estimated Award Floor: $1,500,000
Type of Funding: FY21 Economic Support Funds under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961
Cost-Sharing or Matching: Encouraged: NOT Required

Eligibility Criteria

Eligible applicants include U.S. or foreign:
- Non-profit organizations;
- For-profit organizations;
- Private institutions of higher education;
- Public or state institutions of higher education;
- Public international organizations;
Applicants should have functional experience in laying the foundation for transitional justice-related activities, as specified.
Applicants may form consortia and submit a combined proposal. However, one organization should be designated as the lead applicant with the other members as sub-award partners.
The Department of State is committed to an anti-discrimination policy in all of its programs and activities.
The Department of State welcomes applications irrespective of an applicants’ race, ethnicity, color, creed, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. They encourage applications from organizations working with underserved communities, including women, people with disabilities, and youth.
Applicants must have the organizational capacity to implement program components in countries proposed. Applicants must also have experience in conducting risk assessments and monitoring and evaluating programs and sub-recipients in order to document and assess the short- and long-term outcomes of proposed projects. Applicants will be required to include partnerships with local individuals and/or organizations, including those displaced, as part of their project design. Extensive partnerships with international accountability mechanisms, national law enforcement agencies, documentation organizations, and/or international or professional legal associations, are useful to ensure that all program activities can be implemented quickly.