The United Nations and the European Court of Human Rights offer recourse to individuals whose rights have been violated. The mechanisms available to these bodies to enforce human rights standards are limited. Every four years, the United Nations Human Rights Committee scrutinises reports from each country which has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Based on what it finds, the Human Rights Committee makes specific recommendations. However, national governments do not always implement them or delay implementation.
The U.N. Human Rights Committee also has the power to investigate any case alleging human rights violations brought by an individual from any of the 92 states which have ratified the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. However, before considering the complaint, the individual must first have exhausted domestic remedies, a process that usually takes up to ten years.
More effective and swifter enforcement mechanisms are needed. This subject deserves a detailed examination and full set of measures that will effectively end discrimination, but following are immediate guidelines that will pave the way to better remedies:
1. Most urgent is to campaign for and pass national laws in each country that ban religion-based discrimination in all forms including exclusion from public and private sector employment on the grounds of one’s religion or belief. These domestic laws would add teeth to the religious freedom guarantees in national constitutions and international human rights laws.
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