spite of the often bad socio-economic and educational circumstances which may hinder individ-
ual complaints. It is therefore unsurprising that the system is thoroughly underused and that the
communications brought under the UN-Treaty based mechanism, which allow only for individ-
ual complaints or joinders mostly originate from developed countries.233 Here, NGOs are usually
better organized and active in human rights issues. They often bring the cases as representatives
for individuals.234 Whereas one could assume that the issuing of non-binding decisions is coun-
terbalanced by a broadening of standing, as is the case with the African Commission and the
IACHR, this does not apply for the UN-treaty based system. Furthermore, there are no legal aid
provisions, as opposed to the ECtHR. Although neither the African nor the Inter-American sys-
tems have legal aid provisions, they provide at least for altruistic NGO complaints, which shift
the all the monetary and non-monetary costs of complaints from the victims to the NGOs. Altru-
istic NGO complaints are also especially suited to overcome the problem of judicial access.
Thus, under the UN-treaty based system, substantial barriers exist for human rights complainants
pursuing justice independently.235 That problem might be mitigated by NGOs or lawyers acting
as representatives pro bono, but it does not solve the problem in all constellations.
All international human rights treaties or the respective Rules of Procedure allow for joinders.
While joinders allow for certain claims to be brought in a single proceeding, they still require
each victim to file an individual petition and leave the individual in principle alone with bearing
the costs for her representative, all other costs and all risks. Joinders may alleviate the workload
of the court, but do not foster the incentive to bring a complaint, especially if the gathering of
potential other victims is difficult for the initiating complainant. That raises the costs in the first
place, but may alleviate the costs afterwards. Joinders are therefore nothing but an intermediate
step for solving the problem. Nevertheless, it should be noted that all regional treaties as well as
the CERD and the CEDAW also explicitly allow for joinders, which makes sense, as discrimina-
tory cases usually afflict a whole group.
Some treaty provisions provide for rights of minorities and “peoples’ rights”, for example Art.
27 CCPR (even if the right is understood to be an individual right by the HRC) and the African
Charter. Nevertheless, the FOP to the CCPR states in Art. 1 explicitly that only individuals (also
in the form of joinders) may bring a complaint before the HRC. Group complaints are not per-
mitted at all before the UN Committees, which makes it more difficult to bring complaints con-
cerning rights with a collective aspect, e.g. Art. 27 CPPR. Yet, a community of human rights
victims may find proceeding as a group desirable because this kind of representative justice may
sometimes provide the only possible way of rendering justice to victims of a particular policy,
especially if group and minority rights are at stake. Currently, individuals seeking justice and
some form of redress for their injuries mostly must file individual petitions - a provision which
is not adequate for rights which may only be exercised collectively.
233 In the case of CERD, all the cases were directed against developed countries (except from Australia and
Serbia and Montenegro, all countries are members of the EU) and most were communicated by non-citizens.
In the case of the HRC, about 45% of the communications are from developed countries.
234 Neumayer, supra note 6, finds that countries with better NGO organization have better human rights records.
235 See Aceves, supra note 47, at 354.
46