International Human Rights and the International Human Rights System A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions 3.4. The results The complaint procedure has a very limited range of results. When discussing the report of the Working Group on Situations, the HRC can decide: • to discontinue considering the situation when further consideration or action is not warranted • to keep the situation under review and request the State concerned to provide further information within a reasonable period of time • to keep the situation under review and appoint an independent and highly qualified expert to monitor the situation and report back to the HRC • to discontinue reviewing the matter under the confidential complaint procedure in order to take up public consideration of it • to recommend to the OHCHR to provide technical cooperation, capacity-building assistance or advisory services to the State concerned.256 Nonetheless, by placing States under the international scrutiny of their peers, the procedure contributes to States improving their compliance with their international human rights obligations. An NHRI can play roles at different points in the complaint procedure. It can assist victims by advising them and NGOs of the procedure and the process of making and pursuing a complaint. It can lodge complaints itself with the HRC on behalf of victims. It can also provide information relating to a complaint to the Working Groups on Communications and on Situations and to the HRC itself, to assist in the assessment and handling of the complaint. It can encourage its Government to cooperate fully with the complaint procedure and to respond positively to recommendations made by the HRC under the complaint procedure. Sometimes a Government seeks to have a complaint dismissed on the basis that the complainant has not exhausted all domestic remedies because she or he has not pursued a remedy through the NHRI. NHRIs should be diligent in ensuring that they are not used by States as a means to avoid accountability through the HRC’s complaint procedure. Very few NHRIs have the power to make binding, legally enforceable decisions on complaints of human rights violations and to provide compulsory remedies and so they are not, and should not be seen as, effective domestic remedies. Where necessary, they should advise the Working Groups on Communications and on Situations of the limits on their powers and of their inability to provide an effective domestic remedy. This is critical to the integrity and credibility of the NHRI itself and of the HRC procedure. 256 HRC Resolution 5/1; para. 109. Chapter 13: International complaint procedures | 89