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

288 PRACTITIONERS GUIDE No. 12
b) Standing
The terms “locus standi” or “standing” address the question of
who is entitled to enter an application or submit a complaint for
a human rights violation before an international mechanism.
Whilst some international mechanisms with a judicial or quasijudicial
character provide for standing for individuals to bring
complaints, others allow for “collective complaints” by groups.
Individual Complaints: some mechanisms allow only
for the victims of a violation, or for those petitioning on
his or her behalf to lodge a complaint. Certain
mechanisms allow for general human rights NGOs to
lodge a complaint on behalf of victims, even without
their direct authorisation, although it must be
demonstrated that it would have been impossible or
very difficult to obtain authorisation for reasons
independent from the victims themselves.
Collective Complaints: This mechanism allows
organisations to challenge a general legal or factual
situation which gives rise to or has the potential to give
rise to human rights violations, without naming
individual complaints.
i) Standing to bring individual application: the meaning of
“victim”
In individual complaints mechanisms, standing is generally
accorded to persons who are “victims” of a human rights
violation. Victims may be either direct or indirect. A victim is
generally a person directly affected by the violation of the
human rights concerned. 714 However, particular cases might
arise when the direct cause and effect is more blurred. For
example, the existence of a law that potentially impedes the
714
Companies might be victims too, but due to the scope of this Guide
we will deal only with individuals.