victim. Box 4.1 highlights some of the key features of effective remedies for violations of human rights contained in the 1990 Copenhagen Document. Where no remedy, or an insufficiently effective one, is provided at the national level, recourse may be had to individual complaint mechanisms at the international level. OSCE human rights commitments do not themselves provide for an individual complaint mechanism, but complaints mechanisms are available under various UN and regional human rights treaties to which OSCE participating States are parties. These are discussed in Chapter 5. OSCE participating States have agreed that any limitations on human rights must be provided for by law and must be consistent with other international obligations (Copenhagen 1990). Any restrictions on human rights should be exceptional, applied consistently, and should be applied strictly proportionately with regard to the aim of the law. In this, the commitments are structured in a manner similar to international human rights treaties. 2. OSCE Monitoring and Implementation Mechanisms OSCE participating States have consistently reaffirmed that, since the protection of human rights is a pillar of the international order, recognition of human rights is not the internal preserve of individual states; rather, states are accountable to their citizens and to each other for implementation of their commitments. In Moscow in 1991, the participating States affirmed categorically and irrevocably that matters within the human dimension of the OSCE were of “direct and legitimate concern to all participating States”. In addition to regular implementation meetings, the OSCE has also created so-called human dimension mechanisms, the Vienna Mechanism16 and the Moscow Mechanism,17 the latter partly constituting a further elaboration of the Vienna Mechanism. Together, they set out a process for supervising the implementation of human dimension commitments to be invoked on an ad hoc basis by OSCE participating States. The Vienna Mechanism allows a participating State, through a set of procedures, to raise questions relating to the human dimension in another OSCE participating State. The Moscow Mechanism builds on this and provides for the additional possibility of establishing ad hoc missions of independent experts to assist in the resolution of a specific human dimension problem. This includes the right to investigate alleged violations of human dimension commitments, in exceptional circumstances even without the consent of the accused state. In practice, the human dimension mechanisms are only rarely applied, partly due to the development of the OSCE into a permanently functioning organization and partly due to the political considerations involved in invoking such ad hoc mechanisms.18 Various bodies exist at the OSCE level to monitor implementation of human dimension commitments, including the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and the OSCE’s Representative on Freedom of the Media. Participating States are ultimately responsible for implementation of commitments, however, and also engage in peer review on implementation of commitments in their fellow participating States. 16  As established in Vienna in 1989, see Concluding Document of the Vienna Meeting (Third Follow-up Meeting to the Helsinki Conference). 17  1991 Moscow Document, paras. 1-16, amended by the 1993 Rome Document (Chapter IV, para. 5). 18  ODIHR continues to maintain a list of experts as required by the Moscow Mechanism. 27 Handbook on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Armed Forces Personnel