PART TWO: CONTENT OF COMPREHENSIVE ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAW C. International justice mechanisms In addition to providing effective sanction, individual reparation and institutional and societal remedies within their domestic legal frameworks, ensuring effective remedy requires States to enable those exposed to discrimination to complain directly to the treaty bodies. PART TWO – III Indeed, in numerous cases, survivors have only secured recognition and remedy for the discrimination that they have experienced when they have turned to the international level, following the exhaustion of domestic remedies. In addition to providing remedy for particular cases, the findings of the treaty bodies in the consideration of individual complaints have played a key role in advancing reform on equality at the national level and in developing understanding of the scope and substance of the right to non-discrimination at the international level. Thus, in order to ensure the availability of a comprehensive set of remedies – and thus to meet their international obligations – States should take the necessary steps to ensure that individuals can submit complaints to the treaty bodies. This requires States to either ratify an optional protocol or make a specific declaration under the relevant instrument. If such steps have not already been taken, they should be taken at the same time as the adoption of comprehensive anti-discrimination laws. Indeed, in order to ensure effective access to justice, States should ensure that anti-discrimination legislation identifies submitting a complaint to the treaty bodies as a specific means of securing remedy and sets out the necessary steps to access such bodies. 1. Individual complaints mechanisms It is beyond the scope of the present guide to describe the full range of international justice mechanisms available for the consideration of human rights violations; instead, this section briefly summarizes the system of individual complaints before those bodies that engage most frequently with the rights to non-discrimination and equality. The Human Rights Committee has the power to consider individual communications alleging violations of the rights provided in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by States that are party to the first Optional Protocol to the Covenant. The Committee can consider complaints including discrimination in respect of any of the civil and political rights guaranteed in the Covenant (under article 2) or discrimination in any area of life regulated by law, as set out under article 26. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights may consider individual communications relating to States parties to the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It can consider complaints alleging discrimination in respect of any of the economic, social and cultural rights guaranteed by the Covenant, including in the fields of education, employment, health and health care – including sexual and reproductive health and rights – housing and shelter, access to water and sanitation, access to food and clothing, and social security and social assistance. In addition to these mechanisms, complaints mechanisms are established under treaties dedicated specifically to addressing discrimination or protecting the rights of particular groups. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination may consider individual petitions alleging violations by States parties that have made a declaration under article 14 of the relevant Convention. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women may consider individual communications alleging violations of the relevant Convention by States parties to the Optional Protocol to the Convention. Similarly, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities may consider individual communications alleging violations of the relevant Convention by States parties to the Optional Protocol thereto. If a State has ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure, the Committee on the Rights of the Child may consider communications alleging violations of the Convention or its Optional Protocols. Other complaints procedures exist concerning torture, the rights of migrant workers, and in the context of enforced disappearances, but these fall beyond the scope of the present guide. 97