Individual Litigation Procedure in the Treaty System of Human Rights Covenants

One of the most effective ways to implement human rights documents and protect basic human freedoms is to provide executive and monitoring mechanisms for them. The international human rights system has established mechanisms to support victims of human rights violations; One of these mechanisms is "individual litigation" which is provided in many human rights documents.The issue raised in this article is the process of "individual litigation" in two important international human rights documents, i.e. the Covenant of Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (henceforth Covenants). In order to explain this issue and in a descriptive and analytical way, we will see that in the treaty system of human rights covenants, a protection mechanism for the victims of human rights violations has been established under the title of "Individual Litigation Ritual". In this way of litigation, the victims of human rights violations are allowed to act independently of the government and government institutions to claim their rights after failing to appeal to internal mechanisms. Studies show that although this method of litigation is effective, the proceedings are sometimes long and face the resistance of the accused government.