A/HRC/24/50 measures to be taken by States in relation to the fulfilment of economic, social and cultural rights include making available and accessible appropriate remedies and establishing appropriate venues for redress such as courts, tribunals or administrative mechanisms that are accessible to all on an equal basis, including the most disadvantaged men and women.16 In the light of the historic abuses experienced by indigenous peoples, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is particularly noteworthy, as it recognizes the need for special measures to deal with discrimination. B. Regional human rights jurisprudence 16. Regional human rights conventions, including the American Convention on Human Rights and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, include the right to a remedy. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights provides that every individual has the right to have his or her cause heard, which necessarily requires provision of a remedy. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has required positive State action to remove barriers to access to justice.17 17. Indigenous peoples have sought justice under international law and associated processes, especially within human rights frameworks. International human rights bodies have developed human rights jurisprudence to provide substantive justice for indigenous peoples and to expand their access points of justice. 18. Positive examples of international human rights jurisprudence include decisions that expand on domestic protection of the rights of indigenous peoples.18 Examples include the decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Saramaka People v. Suriname and that of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Centre for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and Minority Rights Group International on behalf of Endorois Welfare Council v. Kenya. They provide a platform for further action by the indigenous peoples. As noted about Saramaka, “it is platform of identity, constituted by formal recognition (the Saramaka are the bearers of international indigenous rights) and by substantive recognition (they possess title to their territory, and participation, resourcesharing and impact assessment rights)”.19 IV. The relationship between access to justice and other rights of indigenous peoples A. Self-determination 19. The right to self-determination is a central right for indigenous peoples from which all other rights flow. In relation to access to justice, self-determination affirms their right to maintain and strengthen indigenous legal institutions, and to apply their own customs and laws. 16 17 18 19 6 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 16 (2005), para. 21. See Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Access to Justice as a Guarantee of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (OEA/Ser.L/V/II. 129 Doc 4, 2007). Seminar on access to justice: Patrick Macklem. Ibid. “The closer the attention and the more specific the descriptions international law offers of what changes are needed in domestic law, the more the intervention translates relatively abstract international human and indigenous rights into concrete legal entitlements cognizable to the domestic legal order in question in a programmatic way, the firmer the foundation that an international legal decision will provide to indigenous political mobilization.” (Ibid.)