Seeking Remedies for Torture Victims: A Handbook on the Individual Complaints Procedures of the UN Tready Bodies the Committees do so in order to uphold the integrity and credibility of the reporting system. It would be highly unsatisfactory if the only source of information about a State’s human rights record was the State itself. Individuals and groups can make use of the reporting system to bring instances of torture and other ill-treatment in a State to the attention of the relevant Committee. There are a number of reasons why one might wish to use the reporting process rather than the individual complaints process for this purpose: – The relevant State may not allow individual complaints against it under a particular treaty (see Sections 1.3.2, 1.5.2 and Table 1). – One cannot otherwise satisfy the admissibility criteria for an individual complaint (see Section 2.1.1). – One may wish to use the reporting system to raise systemic issues of non-implementation of international decisions of treaty bodies and the lack of reparations and guarantees of non-repetition. Perhaps most importantly, the individual complaints system is geared towards addressing abuses at an individual level and is less suitable for highlighting large scale human rights abuses. The reporting process offers a better outlet for the submission of information regarding large scale or systemic human rights abuses. For example, statistics that reveal a high suicide rate in prison for persons of a certain ethnic group will not of themselves prove that a particular individual member of that group has suffered human rights abuse. They do, however, provide evidence of a systemic problem regarding the treatment of members of that group in prisons. Besides the already mentioned opportunities to address the Committees by submitting written information before the adoption of the LoIPRs and the LoIs, NGOs are encouraged to submit reports before the examination of the State party’s report (after the adoption of the LoIs). Information should be received by the relevant Committee at least two weeks before the opening of the session.384 It is important not to inundate a Committee with information. The Committee members operate on a part time basis and may not have the time to absorb large amounts of information. Ideally, civil society organisations should cooperate with each other in submitting information to ensure against overlap and duplication. Indeed, NGOs are encouraged to submit a joint alternative or ‘shadow’ report, often in the same format as the State report or responding to all or to some of 384 See CAT Committee, Information for Civil Society Organisations and National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), Section 2, available at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CAT/Pages/ NGOsNHRIs.aspx; the HRC usually requires NGOs to submit information a minimum of three weeks in advance. 128