not, in the committees’ view, dispense with the obligation to exhaust it. Furthermore, if the State party concerned considers that domestic remedies have not been exhausted, it must provide details of the effective remedies available. • Is the complaint precluded by a reservation made by the State to the treaty in question?10 A State may have entered a substantive reservation to the treaty or a procedural reservation to the complaint mechanism limiting a committee’s competence to examine certain communications. • Is the complaint an abuse of the procedure? In some cases, a committee may consider a claim to be a frivolous, vexatious or otherwise inappropriate use of the complaint procedure and reject it as inadmissible, for example if the same individual repeatedly brings claims to the committee on the same issue although the previous ones have already been dismissed. Merits of the complaint Once a committee declares a complaint admissible, it proceeds to consider it on its merits, stating the reasons for concluding that a violation has or has not occurred under the applicable treaty provisions. As noted above, a number of States have entered substantive reservations that may limit the scope of the human rights obligations they assume under the treaties. In most cases, a committee will decline to consider complaints concerning matters covered by a reservation, though in exceptional circumstances it may find a reservation impermissible and consider the case regardless. Information on what a committee considers to be the scope of the rights contained in the treaty for which it is responsible can be found in its decisions on individual cases,11 its so-called general comments, interpreting the meaning of various articles, and its concluding observations on reports submitted periodically by State parties.12 These documents are accessible on the OHCHR website. There are also numerous academic articles and textbooks on the jurisprudence of the various committees. Reservations are formal statements by which States may limit the obligations that they accept under a particular provision of a treaty. For specific reservations by States, see http://treaties. un.org/Pages/Treaties.aspx?id=4&subid=A&lang=en (accessed 28 March 2013). 11 For previous decisions, search the treaty body documents database: http://tb.ohchr.org/ default.aspx or the web page of each committee. 12 See the Universal Human Rights Index: www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/Pages/Universal HumanRightsIndexDatabase.aspx (accessed 28 March 2013). 10 9