We produce the rigorous critical research the field lacks — work that is willing to hold international law itself accountable. Our flagship publications include the annual IHL Gap Report, the World Human Rights Law Index, and the IHL Accountability Report.
Annual analysis of the structural gaps in international humanitarian law — documenting specific situations where IHL failed to prevent or stop atrocities, identifying the precise legal lacunae responsible, and proposing concrete reform measures. The authoritative annual record of IHL's failures and the legal reform agenda they generate.
Annual ranking and assessment of national legal systems across 193 jurisdictions — measuring compliance with binding international human rights obligations, tracking year-on-year trends, and identifying the jurisdictions where legal reform is most urgently needed. The first index to assess both domestic and international law compliance simultaneously.
Annual documentation of impunity in armed conflict — tracking violations of IHL that were not prosecuted, referrals blocked by Security Council veto, ICC cases that stalled, and perpetrators who escaped accountability. A systematic record of the accountability gap and the specific mechanisms responsible for it.
No donor, partner, or institutional interest influences OLJA's research conclusions. Our funding model is designed specifically to protect editorial independence — we will not accept funding from governments whose legal systems we assess, or from institutions whose practices we critique.
All OLJA publications are peer-reviewed by independent experts in international law, human rights, and the relevant regional legal systems. Our methodology is published transparently and our underlying data is available for independent verification.
All OLJA publications are available free of charge in all nine OLJA languages. We do not put our research behind paywalls. Human rights research should be available to the communities it concerns.
Affected communities are partners in our research — not subjects. We co-design research agendas with community representatives, ensure that community knowledge and testimony are treated as primary evidence, and share all findings with communities before publication.
Every OLJA publication includes a concrete set of recommendations — not aspirational statements, but specific legal reforms, institutional changes, and advocacy actions that directly address the documented failure. Our research is designed to be used, not shelved.
OLJA is the only human rights research organisation that systematically critiques international law itself — not merely state compliance with international law. Our research holds the rules accountable, not only the rule-breakers.
We welcome collaboration with academics, civil society researchers, and international law experts who share our commitment to independent, critical, community-centred research.