Dear Aryaone,
From your question, it is not clear, to which court you are referring.
There could be several possibilities:
(1) The International Court for Justice (official web-site:
http://www.icj-cij.org/), which sits in The Hague, does not deal with
grievances of private individuals (or organisations, for that matter),
but only with legal disputes between two governments (or other
sovereign bodies).
(2) Another court that sits (or rather: would sit) in the Hague is The
International Criminal Court (official site:
http://www.un.org/law/icc/index.html). "The Court was formally
established after 60 countries ratified the Rome Statute. On 1 July,
2002, it entered into force. It currently has around 125 signatories
and 27 ratifications.". Regarding its mandate, "The Court has a
mandate to try individuals rather than States and to hold them
accountable for the most serious crimes of concern to the
international community - genocide, war crimes and crimes against
humanity, and, eventually, the crime of aggression. A common
misperception is that the Court will be able to try those accused of
having committed such crimes in the past, but this is not the case. "
(Source: International Criminal Court
http://www.un.org/News/facts/iccfact.htm). Since this tribunal would
try individuals and not governments, this might not fit your criteria.
(3) The European Court of Human Rights (official site
http://www.echr.coe.int/) sits usually in Strasbourg, and deals with
grievances of citizens and organisations against violations of the
European Human Rights Convention. If you live in Europe and wish to
file a complaint against what seems to you like a violation of the
European Treaty of Human Rights, you can do so at
http://www.echr.coe.int/BilingualDocuments/ApplicantInformation.htm#INFORMATION
FOR APPLICATIONS / INFORMATIONS CONCERNANT LES REQUETES (if this like
doesn't work, try this one http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z12E21C33
In other words, these institutions might not provide you with an
action against a government outside Europe. However, there are other
bodies who might assist an individual or a group in appealing against
human rights violations of any country:
- In democratic countries, an action through official channels
(parliament members, officials in the foreign office, etc.) might be
possible, in order to lobby the country's government to file a
complaint against the human rights violation of the other country.
- Indirect pressure, through international organisations such as
Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org/), International
Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (http://www.ihf-hr.org/), and
Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/) could be helpful more than
international legal actions.
- Addressing the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights
(http://193.194.138.190/) Commission on Human Rights with an urgent
appeal: http://193.194.138.190/html/menu2/7/ua.htm , as described
here.
I hope that helped. Except for my knowledge in International Law, I
also used various terms to search for the issue. I used "international
court" and "hague" together with "human rights" to reach all
documents, and added some of the information published in the official
sites. If you need any clarification on this answer, please let me
know. I's be pleased to clarify my answer before you rate it. |
