Howard Varney

Howard Varney is a consultant and a practising advocate at the Johannesburg Bar. His legal practice comprises human rights, constitutional and administrative law cases.

Howard is retained by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) as a Senior Programme Adviser on a part-time basis. His areas of expertise include investigations, prosecutions, institutional reform and reparations.

In the early 1990s, he was an attorney with the Legal Resources Centre in Durban where he represented victims of political violence in public interest litigation, judicial inquests, and commissions of inquiry. In the mid-1990s he led an independent criminal investigation in South Africa into organized political crime which resulted in significant criminal trials. He worked with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a consultant on a range of matters. Howard was also the Chief Investigator for the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He assisted the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste with the compilation of its final report.

As a consultant for ICTJ, he has assisted with the development of transitional justice initiatives in several countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Americas and the Balkans. He continues to represent victims of past conflicts in the courts of South Africa to vindicate their rights. Howard has a BA LLB from Natal University and an LLM from Columbia Law School.

He has published on truth and reconciliation commissions, commissions of inquiry, criminal justice issues, amnesty, the relationship between war crime tribunals and truth commissions, community security and small arms control.