12 Trial Monitoring: A Reference Manual for Practitioners to determine their compliance with such standards. These substantive aspects of international standards on fair trials that should be assessed during the course of trial monitoring are described in a companion volume, ODIHR’s Legal Digest of International Fair Trial Rights6 . Trial monitoring generally takes one of three different forms. “Systemic trial monitoring” is the term used for a long-term, wide-ranging trial-monitoring programme aimed at assessing parts of the justice system in order to support justice reform. A second approach to trial monitoring can be thematic, with an in-depth focus on one or several areas — for example, war crimes, administrative justice or pre-trial proceedings. The third approach to trial-monitoring centres on individual, usually high-profile cases or a group of such cases. This approach is known as “ad hoc trial monitoring”. All three types of monitoring are addressed in this manual. The focus of most OSCE trial-monitoring programmes has been on criminal justice cases. In response to developments and reforms in the OSCE region, however, they increasingly pay attention to civil and administrative justice as well, given the crucial importance of the relevant court systems in providing remedies in these areas of profound impact on individuals’ rights and legal interests. The practical advice and tools set out in the manual are applicable to any form of trial monitoring, including civil and administrative justice. This substantially revised edition retains the focus of the original manual on the public phase of trial proceedings. This mirrors the emphasis placed by many programmes on the right to a public trial and on a methodology that favours direct observation over other information-gathering techniques. Unlike the previous edition, however, this document recognizes that many trial-monitoring programmes extend their monitoring and advocacy beyond the public phase of the trial. Thus, the manual addresses strategies for gaining access to court documents and observing closed hearings. The manual also describes interviewing techniques and advocacy activities directed towards actors outside the courtroom. Further, the manual recognizes that certain trial-monitoring programmes go beyond the trial phase and include activities such as investigative proceedings, detention hearings and access to justice issues relating to persons in detention facilities. Frequently, these activities may require special access agreements. To a large degree, this expansion of the manual underscores the close interrelation between trial monitoring and justice-sector monitoring, which is discussed in the first chapter. ÀÀ Content and organization of the manual This revised manual is divided into five parts and a number of annexes. Part I describes the nature of trial monitoring, its underlying principles, and the different trial-monitoring methodologies. Part II addresses the planning phase of trial monitoring. It outlines the actions programme managers should take when establishing a new programme or expanding activities into a new field. It describes the initial considerations they need to take into account to clarify programme objectives, decide on the most appropriate structure for the monitoring teams, lay the groundwork for obtaining access to information, and put in place systems to manage the information to be gathered. Part III describes systemic trial monitoring. It is the largest part of the volume, as it describes and gives guidelines on the many aspects of a comprehensive trial-monitoring programme. After depicting the general features of systemic trial monitoring, this part explains in more detail the organizational aspects involved. Subsequently, it walks the reader through the different steps of the “monitoring cycle” in these long-term programmes. These steps span from information-gathering techniques and analysis of findings to advocacy activities. Methods for the evaluation of a programme’s impact are included, as are considerations pertaining to the sustainability and phasing-out of programmes. 6  ODIHR, Legal Digest of International Fair Trial Rights, op. cit., note 2. A list of other sources for substantive standards is included in Annex VIII.