If you wish to submit an individual communication, that is, a complaint, to the UN Human Rights Committee, I will assess whether there are reasonable grounds for doing so.
An individual communication may be submitted to the Human Rights Committee only against a State that appears in the table for the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and has at least one date not enclosed in square brackets in the “Entry into force” column.
Only individuals who claim to be victims of violations may submit an individual communication to the Human Rights Committee. Organisations cannot do so.
The Human Rights Committee considers only communications alleging violations of the rights and freedoms set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. However, the Committee lacks the resources to give substantive consideration to every complaint that may formally fall within the scope of the Covenant. According to the Committee’s published jurisprudence, it therefore makes practical sense to submit a communication primarily when it concerns:
- arbitrary deprivation of life or a real threat of such deprivation, including the imposition or execution of a death sentence in breach of the Covenant, as well as enforced disappearance;
- torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, failure to conduct an effective investigation into such acts, and the use in proceedings of confessions or other statements obtained through torture or other coercion;
- arbitrary deprivation of liberty or prolonged detention without effective judicial review;
- expulsion, deportation or extradition where there is a real risk of arbitrary deprivation of life, torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
- persecution for making statements, carrying out journalistic, human rights, political or religious activities, taking part in peaceful assemblies, or forming or participating in associations;
- unjustified obstruction of participation in elections;
- discriminatory restrictions on rights on grounds of race, colour, sex, language, sexual orientation, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, or other status;
- arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy or family life, including family separation;
- restrictions on the rights of persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities to enjoy their own culture, profess their own religion and use their own language, as well as on the right of Indigenous peoples to maintain their traditional way of life.
If a communication concerns only a violation of the right to a fair trial, submitting it makes practical sense only where there has been manifest arbitrariness or a flagrant denial of justice–for example, where a person has effectively been denied access to a court, the opportunity to defend themselves, or the right to have their case heard by an independent and impartial tribunal. In other cases, particular violations of that right may be relevant to the Human Rights Committee only if they are directly connected with one of the matters listed above.
If the same matter is currently being examined by the ECHR or another international body, an individual communication cannot be submitted to the Human Rights Committee on that matter. If the ECHR has already completed its examination of the same matter, an individual communication may be submitted to the Human Rights Committee only against a State marked “yes” in the “UN HR Committee after ECHR” column of the table for the First Optional Protocol.
The cost of preparing an individual communication depends on the time the work will take. The range is very wide: from a few hundred euros if the work can be completed in two or three hours, to 10,000 euros or more if it requires tens of hours. That time is needed to study the documents, identify the key facts, find and analyse all current Human Rights Committee jurisprudence on the merits and admissibility of each potential complaint, formulate the complaints on that basis, substantiate each alleged violation, show that each complaint meets the admissibility requirements, and then present all of this in the individual communication briefly, clearly and consistently.
I can determine how much time your case will require, and therefore how much preparing the individual communication will cost, only after seeing the documents. Please provide all decisions you wish to complain about; any other documents recording the measures you wish to complain about; every complaint, appeal or other submission to the national authorities, including the courts, in which those complaints were raised in substance; and every decision on those complaints, appeals or submissions. If you have applied to the ECHR or another international body in relation to the same matter, also provide all documents connected with that application. If you already have the full case file in electronic form, it is better to send it all at once. Do not worry about sending extra documents or about missing something: if I need additional documents after reviewing what you send, I will ask you for them.
I normally respond to a request for the cost of preparing an individual communication within one week of receiving all the necessary documents and information.
If I conclude that there are reasonable prospects for submitting an individual communication to the Human Rights Committee, I will tell you the exact cost of preparing it, taking into account the complaints that it makes sense to raise, and will very briefly say which complaints it does not make sense to bring. At the same time, I will send you an agreement for the preparation of the communication. Payment may be made by bank transfer to my account in Switzerland or by other methods, depending on the country from which the payment is made. When the work is completed, I will email you the text of the individual communication, the prepared annexes and instructions on how to submit everything to the Human Rights Committee. Representation before the Human Rights Committee and any other work on the case are not included in the cost of preparing the communication. If I conclude that there are no reasonable prospects for submitting an individual communication to the Human Rights Committee, I will tell you only that.
This service is clearly not for you if any of the following statements applies to you: