region of the Russian Federation, as well as from Moldova, Azerbaijan, and—albeit less recently—Turkey.6 This resolution importantly indicated that the European Court of Human Rights should continue with cases where there had been some indication that the withdrawal by the victim had been requested under spurious grounds. So, it is quite interesting that all regional courts have faced this issue and it is not only an issue that has been faced by the UN Committee against Torture or the Human Rights Committee. So, it is quite important to situate the challenge of victim protection in human rights cases with regard to the situation that operates in most countries around the world. To the extent that protection mechanisms exist at the domestic level, they are not geared to human rights litigants. This is an overall problem. When we start to talk about interim measures, if a regional human rights court or a treaty mechanism is recommending that states take particular action, one must be mindful of the types of systems that exist at the domestic level. How will the state respond to these interim measures, when it has very limited structures in place? This is an overall concern of which we should be mindful in considering the challenge of protection. There have been, very importantly, reprisals against human rights defenders and lawyers representing victims in claims before international bodies, as well as claims at the domestic level. So, all of these problems or challenges combine to make the prospect of seeking justice a risky business for victims of torture, which is very unfortunate. Taking one step back, is there an obligation to protect? Is there a human rights obligation that states have to protect? The short answer is, of course, yes. But actually, when one looks through the wide variety of human rights treaties, one can see a distinct absence of the obligation set out in most typical treaties relating to human rights. The reason for that is typically, when we think about protection in the context of criminal trials, the victim is not normally or has not traditionally been seen as a party to proceedings. When we look at the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,8 which has an extensive section on fair trial rights, there is no mention of the obligation to protect victims and witnesses. So, it is quite a stark absence in the overall system of human rights protection. The Challenge of Protection of Victims in International and Domestic Courts Many of my comments will be based, at least in part, on a study that REDRESS conducted several years ago on the overall challenge of protection of victims.7 Part of the reason why we undertook this research was as a result of our work on the International Criminal Court and international criminal tribunals, where as many of you know there is quite an extensive practice on the protection of witnesses in the context of those tribunals, with the system at the International Criminal Court differing from the system in place at the ad hoc tribunals—the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and for the Former Yugoslavia. Unlike the ad hoc tribunals, where victims are only able to appear as witnesses, at the ICC, in addition to their role as witnesses, victims have an independent role where they can present information directly and participate in proceedings. However, the structures of protection at the ICC were modeled on the ad hoc tribunals and the ICC was therefore not adequately equipped to deal with victims who were acting on their own initiative. The ICC adopted a prosecution-initiated model where witness protection measures were accorded in relation to the importance of the particular witness to the criminal prosecution. Important Protections in the CAT Luckily though, when it comes to the United Nations Convention against Torture, we do have Article 13, which sets out in no uncertain terms the obligation of states to ensure that victims who are seeking justice do not face reprisals.9 This is a very important provision. Similarly, in the torture field, the Istanbul Protocol,10 which deals with the medical and legal documentation of torture, clearly specifies that there is an obligation to protect victims and witnesses. But probably the most significant and extensive provision on protection is in the new International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances,11 which sets out state obligations in very clear terms. In accordance with the recent General Comment issued by the UN Committee against Torture on Article 14,12 which concerns the right to redress and rehabilitation, States Parties should also take measures to prevent interference with victims’ privacy and to protect victims, their families, witnesses, and others who have intervened on their behalf against intimidation and retaliation at all times before, during, and after judicial, administrative, or other proceedings that affect the interest of victims. Failure to provide protection to victims stands in the way of victims filing complaints and thereby violates the right to seek and obtain redress and remedy. Here, the UN Committee against Torture underscores the relationship between the need to protect and other rights set out in the Convention, so the obligation to protect is not only a self-standing obligation—victims need to be protected—but when there has been a failure to protect, this The reason why I say this is because it is quite similar at the domestic level around the world. Victim and witness protection systems are typically established to deal with organized crime or serious crime cases and are managed by the prosecution service. So, when we think about the victim of a human rights abuse, who is seeking some kind of justice independent from any criminal prosecution that an office of the prosecutor might bring, there are a number of very specific challenges that the victim would face: first, in convincing the relevant bodies that the individual is entitled to protection when there is no criminal case; and second, the typical bodies undertaking the protection are the police, sometimes the military, depending on the kind of case, which are in the context of human rights, often the same bodies that are allegedly responsible for the violations. 11