ABSTRACT
The local level of state or national jurisdictions provides the domestic context in which supranational and regional human rights frameworks are ratified into law and policy. This is the level of the greatest diversity because the international norms that seek to standardise victim rights and powers are interpreted in accordance with existing laws and policies that necessarily modify or alter the principles of the norm to make sense of local contexts. Alternatively, nations or states may decline to ratify a particular right or process, and may fail to do so due to many, varied reasons. These may include a lack of member or signatory status, local politics, the disinclination of Parliament towards the norm or right to be ratified, or the lack of compatibility with local processes. Further still, local jurisdictions may not ratify a particular instrument because local law and policy already meet or exceed the standard. This may be the case for continental European jurisdictions regarding the right of the victim to prosecute privately, to review the decisions of the prosecutor, and to make submissions throughout the trial pursuant to the recommendations of the Council of Europe.1 As international instruments regarding the rights and powers of victims are often drawn from leading jurisdictions that already provide the victim with access to justice, only those nations that currently fall below international standards will be under pressure to reform law and policy and to ratify a rights framework.
