Exhaustion of domestic remedies As the primary responsibility for the protection of human rights in a country lies with the government of that country, international law states that you must exhaust domestic remedies before bringing your complaint to an international mechanism. Exhaustion of domestic remedies means using all the procedures available to you in your own country to seek protection of your rights or to seek justice in respect of a past violation of your rights. These procedures include taking a case to court or making a complaint to the police. You should demonstrate in your complaint to an international mechanism that you have exhausted, or have made an attempt to exhaust domestic remedies by including all details of any complaints you made to the national authorities and any legal proceeding which may have taken place. However, international law also recognises that sometimes, domestic remedies are not available or are ineffective. You may not need to exhaust domestic remedies if you can show that the remedies available to you at national level are ineffective. In addition, if your complaint concerns a threat to life (for example a death threat, a fear that a summary execution may take place or a fear that a person may be deported to a country where they are at risk of execution) there is no requirement to exhaust domestic remedies. The term "multiple applications" refers to a complaint which has been submitted to several different mechanims at or around the same time. Some mechansims will not consider a complaint if the complaint has already been submitted to another mechansim. For example, a Special Rapporteur will not usually consider a complaint if it has already been submitted to the Human Rights Committee or to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights under the 1503 procedure. In general, you would be advised to carefully select the mechanism which may be best placed to suit you and to avoid submitting "multilple applications". |
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