Gala 2025

The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) has spent more than a quarter century seeking truth, justice, and redress for war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, and other atrocities around the world through our litigation, transitional justice initiatives, and advocacy. We pursue international justice from the ground up, working in solidarity and partnership with victims, survivors, and their communities.

Please join us on May 7, 2025 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as we celebrate the power of truth and recognize the achievements of our 2025 human rights award honorees.

Champions of Justice

The Champion of Justice Award recognizes extraordinary contributions to the field of human rights. We are proud to recognize two incredible woman journalists who exemplify the courage and conviction it takes to bring truth to light.

Susan Meiselas is a renowned documentary photographer who spent five decades documenting human stories across the globe. As a journalist, she has turned an unflinching, insightful, and ultimately, compassionate eye on victims, survivors, and their communities.

Ms. Meiselas is most well known for her work in Latin America, documenting the conflicts at the heart of some of CJA’s most important cases. She has brought to the public images from El Salvador’s civil war and life under the Pinochet dictatorship. She also served as an editor and contributor to El Salvador: The Work of Thirty Photographers (1983) and edited Chile from Within (1991), featuring work by photographers living under the Pinochet regime. She has co-directed three films on human rights in Nicaragua.

Ms. Meiselas’s courageous work reveals the complex stories of those often overlooked in times of conflict and has made a profound impact on photographic truth-telling. She is a MacArthur Fellow and the winner of the Robert Capa Gold Medal. She currently serves as the President of the Magnum Foundation.

Deborah Amos is an award-winning journalist who has covered history-making events such as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. A longtime international correspondent, she spent much of her career at National Public Radio.

Ms. Amos is best known for her groundbreaking, balanced, and humane reporting in conflict zones, bringing to world-shaping events into American homes on NPR’s daily news shows. She has also written two acclaimed books, Eclipse of the Sunnis and Lines in the Sand, which explore the lives of refugees and the complexities of the Middle East. Her work centers the experiences of people impacted by conflict and violence.

Her many honors include a Peabody Award for her coverage of the Syrian uprising, a Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation for her career in war reporting, a Dart Award for reporting on Syrian torture survivors seeking justice, an Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award, and an Emmy.

Ms. Amos is a currently a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. In addition to her reporting, she is a frequent public speaker, advocating for press freedom and the importance of telling underreported stories.

Judith Lee Stronach Award

The Judith Lee Stronach Award honors individuals and organizations that have made an outstanding contribution to the movement for global justice.

The Alliance of Victim-Led Organisation, AVLO is a women-led movement for justice and accountability in The Gambia. It is playing a crucial role in the creation of a war crimes court in The Gambia for atrocities committed under Yahya Jammeh’s dictatorship, which lasted from 1994 to 2017. Jammeh’s 22-year rule was marked by widespread abuses, including torture, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings. During his 22-year dictatorship in The Gambia, Yahya Jammeh systemically oppressed any real or perceived opponents of his regime. The government targeted journalists; human rights defenders; lawyers; student movement leaders; religious leaders; members of the political opposition; judicial officials; and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities. These groups suffered violations including torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and sexual violence.

The efforts of these eight organizations have been vital in securing truth and justice for victims both inside and outside The Gambia. We honor their courage and perseverance in seeking healing in the wake of atrocity, not only for themselves but for their communities, and for the mending of The Gambia for future generations.

Partner in Justice

The Partner in Justice Award recognizes the remarkable partnerships that make CJA’s work possible.

Freshfields US LLP is CJA’s co-counsel in Mzaik v. Syria, a groundbreaking legal effort to hold the Assad regime accountable for the widespread and systematic use of torture in its detention centers. In December 2024, Freshfields and CJA, with the support of more than 20 Syrian civil society organizations, filed evidence with the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. seeking judgment against Syria for torture in the Assad regime’s detention centers. This filing – over 1000 pages long – represents years of collaboration with Syrian activists and human rights defenders, as well as the dedication and expertise of the team at Freshfields, which brought together an international legal team to litigate this case. This work would not be possible without our partnership with Freshfields.

With the recent collapse of the Assad regime, this case is an important step towards establishing the truth of the atrocities that occurred in Assad’s prisons and laying the groundwork for justice in Syria itself. While we await the court’s judgment, CJA and Freshfields continue to work with our Syrian partners to advance domestic accountability for the crimes committed by the Assad regime.

Sponsorship Opportunities

PAST HONOREES AND SPEAKERS

PAST CORPORATE AND ORGANIZATIONAL SPONSORS

• Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
• Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.
• AT&T
• Baker Botts LLP
• Bass, Berry & Sims PLC
• Bertrand, Fox, Elliot, Osman & Wenzel
• Beveridge & Diamond PC
• Burke, Williams & Sorensen, LLP
• California Labor Federation
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• Cooley LLP
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• Covington & Burling LLP
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• Dentons
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• Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP
• Frisby & Associates

• Gap Foundation
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• Ghosh Financial Group of Wells Fargo Advisors
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• The Morrison & Foerster Foundation
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• Norton Rose Fulbright
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• Renne Public Law Group
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