💐What does Access to Remedies mean?

If human rights violations go unaddressed, they could enable further violations leading to an environment of impunity. To avoid this, rights holders must be able to seek remedies from the duty bearers when human rights violations occur.

Remedies can take many forms, including a process before an independent authority, compensation, restoration of rights, an apology, or other means of redressing a violation. These measures can be punitive or non-punitive, but most importantly they have to be effective.

Access to effective remedies is the barometer to measure how seriously states and other entities take their human rights commitments. Additionally, having an effective system to deliver remedies to violations of human rights can serve as an effective deterrence for further human rights abuses. Furthermore, an effective remedies system will allow oversight bodies and other complaint mechanisms to address structural issues that contribute to discrimination and other human rights violations.

It is important to note that non-judicial remedies such as public apologies, public memorials, and guarantees of non-repetition should not be used as substitutes for investigations and prosecutions of perpetrators when human rights violations occur.