Legal Tools
Using International Law for Gender Equality
- Introduction
- Advocacy Background
- Legal Background
- I. The Role of International Law in Domestic Courts
- II. Bringing a Claim in Domestic Court Using an International Law
- III. Bringing a Claim to an International Tribunal or Treaty Committee
B. Legal Background
III. Bringing a Claim to an International Tribunal or Treaty Committee
Violation by One State Party, Enforced by Another State Party.
Many treaties, such as CEDAW, have treaty committees which oversee the continuing compliance of countries. These committee's as well as regional international tribunals can hear grievances against a country's compliance with its treaty obligations. However, most of these tribunals and committees only allow grievances to be filed by one country against another. For example, the Human Rights Committee and the committee formed by the Convention Against Genocide only allow inter-state complaints.
Violation by State Party, Enforced by a Non-State Actor.
The Optional Protocol to [link: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/] allows individuals or NGOs representing individuals, whose rights have been violated to lodge a complaint with the Committee. Therefore non-governmental organizations can bring complaints to the CEDAW Committee against countries that have signed the CEDAW Optional Protocol.
Exhaustion of Local Remedies.
International tribunals and courts require that parties exhaust all possible ways to solve their dispute domestically before being able to bring the claim before the international body in question. In certain situations, parties may alternatively show that seeking a resolution in their domestic courts would be futile. For example, in a country whose government does not prosecute rape as a war crime, a party can use evidence of this government policy as an alternative to having to bring their case in domestic courts before seeking international relief. For any other situation, a domestic claim must be brought and appealed until no more domestic remedies are available - if, and only if, relief is not granted through the domestic legal process, the parties may seek remedies in international courts or tribunals. Note that this rule does not apply for special criminal and war crimes tribunals, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda or the Iraq High Tribunal.