Universal-Womens-accesss-to-justice-Publications-Practitioners-Guide-Series-2016-ENG

252 PRACTITIONERS GUIDE No. 12
Laying the foundations for bringing a case at the international
level should be planned from the start. In order to ensure that
domestic remedies are exhausted – generally a requirement for
proceedings with international courts and treaty bodies – it is
important to ensure a clear evidentiary path of the various
attempts at seeking a domestic remedy. In respect of human
rights treaty bodies, communication shall not be considered by
the relevant committee unless it has ascertained that all
available domestic remedies have been exhausted, but this rule
is subject to exceptions, particularly where the application of
such remedies is unreasonably prolonged or unlikely to give
effective relief. 672
At this stage, it is also important to emphasize that the case
concerns gendered discrimination in the form of gender-based
violence. The CEDAW Committee’s rules of procedure require
this, in order to give the respondent state an opportunity to
rectify their domestic legal system. 673 Including a
documentation of cases of other individuals who are not the
subject of the litigation, but to show that there is a pattern or
trend in the violation of the rights of women, not just the
individual applicants in a case, can make an important
difference to how the case develops. This can be especially
helpful where the authority makes general comments or
recommendations for law and policy reforms, as well as
reparation for individual applicants. This level of documentation
can also be very useful for training the judiciary and for raising
672
Marsha Freeman, Christine Chinkin and Beate Rudolf, The UN
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women. A Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) –
hereafter referred to as the ‘CEDAW Commentary’, page 634; and
more detailed referencing in Annex II ‘International legal remedies
and their use’, extract from International Commission of Jurists
Practitioners Guide No. 6, Migration and International Human Rights
Law (updated edition, 2014) URL: http://icj.wpengine.netdnacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Universal-MigrationHRlaw-PGno-6-Publications-PractitionersGuide-2014-eng.pdf.
673
CEDAW Commentary, page 636.