PUBLICATION: “When the Center Cannot Hold – Grey Zones in “the Age” of Accountability”

Photography of a borderland zone—often perceived as dormant or liminal, yet traversed by complex and active dynamics of power, mobility, and control, often placed beyond accountability’s reach (© Jorge Peniche, 2025)

Read our last piece in Opinio Juris, authored by Mexico Program Lead Jorge Peniche, as part of the Futureproofing Human Rights Sysmposium. Jorge explores an unsettling paradox: grey zones in the so-called age of accountability. Notwithstanding that we are supposedly living in the “age” of accountability, certain human rights violations are increasingly treated as inevitable, beyond accountability’s reach. This is not a matter of formal gaps, but rather of attitudes toward, and approaches to accountability.

Drawing on fieldwork, powerful voices of those claiming justice, and Guernica’s work at the forefront of accountability innovation, the article identifies three critical grey zones: contexts under criminal governance, state capture that resorts to violence, and borderlands’ securitization. According to the author, these zones reflect some of the defining trends in current global politics when assessed through the lens of state governance practices.

This article also draws on findings from the Prevention Project, State Capture Report, led by the Centre’s Senior Advisor Pablo de Greiff, with G37 Centre as a Partner Organization.

You can read the article here. [ENG]

* To find more information on the Future proofing human rights consortium, visit their official website