50 A practical guide to the Istanbul Protocol – for lawyers 1. ACCESS TO INTERNATIONAL COMPLAINT MECHANISMS: EXHAUSTION OF LOCAL REMEDIES For the reasons described above, it is considered under international law that States should have an opportunity to repair any human rights violation for which they are responsible before the international bodies 198 – consequently, international intervene procedures for individual complaints generally require domestic remedies to have been “exhausted” before accepting to examine the complaint. However, there is no need to exhaust domestic remedies when they are ineffective or cannot provide fair and adequate reparation. In such cases victims or their lawyers can seek recourse through the most appropriate individual complaints procedure at the regional or international (uni199 versal) level. For example, in a case before the European Court of Human Rights, a torture victim contended that the failure of a public prosecutor to open criminal investigations hindered their ability to invoke available domestic remedies. It was stated that the victim was unable to ensure a criminal prosecution of perpetrators (for example by challenging the decision not to prosecute in administrative courts) because the lack of an investigation meant there had never been a formal decision not to prosecute. The Court held that the failure of the public prosecutor to open an investigation was tantamount to undermining the effectiveness of any other domestic remedies that may have been available.200 When assessing domestic remedies, the threshold applied by international human rights mechanisms to investigating allegations of torture effectively is very high. States have an obligation under international law to investigate allegations of torture. Although it is normally recognised that this obligations is not applicable to non-wellfounded allegations, in respect of the im- pact of the failure to investigate allegations on victims’ access to a remedy and reparations, the European jurisprudence suggests that States will have violated victims’ rights when they have failed to investigate despite the existence of an “arguable claim”. In Veznedaroglu v. Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights implied that a complaint needs to be “arguable” in order to trigger the State’s obligation to carry out an effective 201 investigation. What constitutes an “arguable claim” is determined on a case-by-case basis.202 While the specific contents of this threshold have not been made clear, some European cases refer to a ‘reasonable suspicion.’203 According to the case law, allegations have been classified as arguable when backed up by at least some other evidence, be this witness testimonies or medical evidence or through the demonstrated persistence of the complainant.204 Through regional or international supervisory bodies, it is possible to invoke a national government’s obligations under international law to obtain a formal or informal response to allegations of torture and obtain a remedy for the victim of torture.205 For example, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ordered governments to investigate violations and sanction perpetrators, as well as award compensation and rehabilitation (medical treatment for victims and their 206 relatives). Improving the general level of public awareness about the nature and scope of decisions made by international human rights bodies can only assist lawyers in their efforts to improve domestic implementation of international standards prohibiting torture. However, it is extremely important that lawyers seek not only reparations for the torture (or other violations) suffered by their clients, but that they also argue before international complaints mechanisms the failure of the domestic system to provide effective proce-