Introduction to Human Rights Week 7: International mechanisms of implementation - 1st part II. Characteristics We will start our examination with the study of the characteristics of Human Rights international implementation. The international monitoring respect for Human Rights has indeed several characteristics. The characteristics can actually be presented in many ways according to the authors who evoke them. In the case of a introductory course like this one, we decided to focus on two characteristics: subsidiarity and diversity. Let us begin with subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is the central characteristic of Human Rights philosophy and contemporary architecture. Subsidiarity means that the international implementation of Human Rights usually only takes place as a last resort, after a control has been exercised at the national level. In order to better understand this characteristic, we must not forget the following central element: Human Rights derive from the international society through treaties, conventions or covenants. These treaties are directed to States. Consequently, States hold an ambiguous position regarding Human Rights protection treaties. They are often the ones that develop them and think of their contents before signing, approving and, finally, ratifying them. States are also the main addressees of Human Rights that they have created. Implementation and monitoring respect for Human Rights are therefore their responsibility. The monitoring respect for Human Rights at the national level takes place in a complementary manner after the State itself had the occasion to apply and, if necessary, to interpret, to correct, to fulfill or even to sanction possible defaults in this field. For example, if the State takes care of ratifying a situation contrary to Human Rights, the international protection should normally not come into play, according to the principle of subsidiarity. We will see that several types of mechanisms for the protection of Human Rights exist. Among them, the jurisdictional mechanisms allow individuals to act at the international stage before independent specialised bodies to complain of a violation of their rights. When this is the case, one of the fundamental rules that precedes the referral to the international organization is that the beneficiaries of the rights in question must first exhaust domestic remedies that are at their disposal at the level of the State in question. We will see this more in detail in a moment. This is a central obligation. In other words, it means that we must go up through the institutional steps which allow to ensure the respect for Human Rights at the national level before considering an international sanction. The local remedies rule also means that it is not enough to exhaust these authorities by presenting the dispute before them - one after the other until the last available one at the national level. If possible, we also have to provide evidence for the violation that we later want to invoke at the international stage. Besides, this principle is well known in international law. International Human Rights instruments can usually only intervene when States have done all what they could to try to ensure the respect of the right in question. Let us take an interesting historical example in the field of Human Rights. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is one of the oldest Human Rights instruments of the United Nations. Indeed, this very important Treaty was adopted on 21 December 1965. Article 14 of this Convention provides that the United Nations Committee against racial discrimination cannot be seized if the State accepts its competence to rule on individual communications only once the actors have exhausted, I quote, "all available domestic remedies". In other words, it is in principle impossible to assert before the international monitoring body established by a treaty regarding Human Rights protection to enforce means or grievance which have not first been argued, presented and treated at the national level before the competent bodies of each State in question. Let us now talk about the diversity of Human Rights international mechanisms of implementation. This is the second characteristic. This characteristic is the result of a simple statement that you have probably made yourself by having a look at the multiple treaties regarding Human Rights instruments which exist at both the universal and regional levels. The statement is that many international Human Rights instruments exist in contemporary right. Diversity of mechanisms means that the implementation and monitoring respect for Human Rights do not obey a unique and uniform mechanism or procedure. The diversity and multiplicity of Human Rights protection instruments imply that these rights depend on monitoring procedures which can have various natures. Besides, they are not exclusive from one another. In other words, the same rights can lead to different examinations, controls and implementations on the international level, according to the legal instruments which enshrine them. Two questions arise: How do these mechanisms appear and what do they consist of? And what are their particularities? In order to answer these questions, we must evoke the structure and criteria which might give the right to international society to examine national practices regarding Human Rights. On this empirical basis, we can imagine a kind of cartography of monitoring mechanisms. There are many different ways of dealing with this issue. Multiple approaches exist. Again, because this course is an introductory course, we will focus on two main principles. First, the chronological criterion. When is the international control likely to intervene? Let me explain: if the body in charge of the control intervenes before that a violation of Human Rights occurs - or apart from a particular dispute - then we will talk of a preventive control or of an a priori control. On the other hand, if the possible control intervenes after that a violation occurred or after it was denounced, we will talk of a successive control or of a post control. That is the first criterion. The second criterion concerns the context in which the control operates. Is the control performed on the basis of a concrete dispute or is it performed on the basis of a less specific dispute? If the control takes place in the framework of a particular dispute, we have to deal with a judicial mechanism. On the other hand, if the control does not take place in the framework of a specific dispute, the body will engage in a non judicial mechanism. We are now going to detail each of these characteristics.