132.  The judgment in Natsvlishvili provides a potential set of safeguards specific to the trial waiver context, in order to consider that a defendant has effectively entered into such an agreement: (a) access to a lawyer; (b) understanding of the charges, waivers and the consequences of those waivers; (c) recording of the terms of the negotiation; and (d) independent judicial review with additional evidence supporting the conviction. However, as the dissenting opinion points out, these safeguards alone failed to establish the voluntariness of the trial waiver, given the high conviction rate at trial in Georgia in the relevant period and the “take it or leave it” attitude of the prosecutor.138 Further indicators of due process and safeguards must be developed to guard against coercive proceedings that undermine the presumption of innocence. 133. The relatively cursory acceptance of trial waivers by the ECtHR with reference to only relatively formalistic safeguarding of rights is disappointing given the quite serious indications of irregularities in the case before it. Judge Gyulumyan alone seemed willing to probe the coercive potential of the possibility of a trial waiver itself in the context of the Georgian legal system at the time, rather than treating it as an uncomplicated waiver of rights. One area where potential safeguards may be developed, identified by Judge Gyulumyan in her partially dissenting opinion, may be in relation to charging practices by prosecutors. Judge Gyulumyan notes that part of the coercive element in the case related to threats by the prosecution to lodge further charges unsupported by prima facie evidence, in order to induce the trial waiver.139 Though similar prosecutorial threats in relation to charging have been deemed constitutional by the US Supreme Court,140 European standards may well regulate excessive charging by prosecutors differently. 134. The ECtHR did not, in its first consideration of trial waiver systems in the Natsvlishvili case, meaningfully develop a framework to ensure that procedural rights are respected in trial waiver proceedings. Nor did it consider the implications of trial waivers for the rule of law and the role of prosecutors and judges. Further jurisprudence on trial waivers from regional and international courts must ensure that fair trial standards apply in full to trial waiver proceedings. An approach that substitutes principled application of rights for a cursory analysis of individual consent to waive them is insufficient to ensure justice in the context of the systematic replacement of full trials with trial waivers in many jurisdictions. The existence of full trial rights in law is meaningless if authorities can avoid procedural requirements by systematically disincentivising defendants from exercising them. International criminal courts and tribunals 135.  Apart from the U.N. and regional human rights mechanisms, legal standards relevant to trial waiver systems are being developed in international criminal courts and tribunals, with many of these formally codifying a trial waiver system into their founding documents or procedural rules. Examples of the operation of trial waiver systems in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (the ICTY) and the International Criminal Court (the ICC) provide valuable case studies which provide further insight into the legal standards and normative framework which could be developed to govern the use of trial waivers. 138. Ibid, para. 4. 139. Ibid, para. 5. 140. Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357 (1978), finding that a prosecutor would not violate due process if he adds additional charges, solely to punish a defendant for exercising a constitutional or statutory right. 66.