Programme Officer (legal And Transitional Justice)

Organizational Context

IOM is a leading UN agency dedicated to promoting humane and orderly migration. The IOM Iraq Legal Empowerment and Transitional Justice (LETJ) Unit, within the Peace, Recovery and Solutions Division, addresses justice and rights deficits crucial for durable solutions. The Unit operates across multiple donor-funded projects, focusing on civic rights, justice system strengthening, and peacebuilding.

Job Purpose

The Programme Officer (Legal and Transitional Justice) P-3 leads the LETJ Unit in Iraq, responsible for its strategic direction, technical quality, and portfolio management. This role involves overseeing projects focused on legal empowerment and transitional justice, ensuring coherence across three key pillars: Access to Civic Rights and Justice, Reparations and Justice (System Strengthening), and Participation and Peacebuilding. The position requires managing multi-donor programs in a complex environment, driving harmonization of the unit's architecture, and operating at policy, program management, and field levels. The officer will coordinate activities, manage donor engagement, and maintain institutional relationships with Iraqi government bodies, contributing to the feasibility of durable solutions, return, and reintegration.

Responsibilities

The Programme Officer will provide strategic leadership and manage the LETJ Unit's portfolio across its three pillars, ensuring coherence and alignment with divisional objectives. This includes coordinating program design, implementation, monitoring, reporting, and donor compliance, as well as contributing to resource mobilization. Technical leadership involves overseeing legal empowerment initiatives, supporting reparations frameworks like the Yazidi Survivors’ Law, and contributing to legislative processes for accountability and transitional justice. The role requires engaging with Iraqi government institutions and representing IOM in inter-agency coordination mechanisms. Additionally, the officer will coordinate survivor participation, guide CSO capacity strengthening, and ensure ethical communication standards. Team management includes supervising staff, ensuring their well-being and professional development, and coordinating high-quality donor reporting.

Work Experience

Required experience includes legal empowerment, transitional justice, rule of law, human rights, or access to justice programming in conflict settings. Demonstrated experience managing multi-donor portfolios exceeding USD 2 million, including program design, implementation, and reporting, is essential. Experience with reparations frameworks, survivor-centred justice, institutional capacity building, and working with government counterparts on reforms is also necessary. Experience supervising diverse teams in complex environments is required, with experience in Iraq or similar contexts being a distinct advantage.

Skills

Knowledge of UN and bilateral donor programming. Demonstrated analytical, writing, and policy drafting skills for technical briefs, concept notes, legal analyses, and donor reports. Ability to translate strategic objectives into operational plans and vice versa. Capacity to engage with senior government officials, judiciary, donors, and UN leadership on complex issues.

Explore related opportunities