significance in such situations, an exploration of which also forms a part of this Manual. The specific objectives of the Manual are as follows:  to document legal options available that address the issue of justice for sexual violence at the domestic, regional and international level;  to study the possibilities and limitations of justice at the national level, the decisions of the regional and international human rights mechanisms and the judgments of the regional and international courts and tribunals;  from the study of possibilities and limitations, decisions and judgments, to explore and identify possible legal strategies that could be employed for justice to victims/survivors of sexual violence;  to outline the applicability, advantages and limitations of the legal strategies;  to provide relevant precedents of success of each of the legal strategies and an analysis of where the strategy failed; and  to discuss advocacy options where employing legal strategies is not an option. 1.6 The Structure of the Manual The first substantive section of the Manual (Section 2) is on domestic processes of justice. It lists the different possible avenues of justice in three legal systems broadly found in Africa – the common law system, the civil law system and the Islamic law system. The possibilities and limitations of justice for sexual violence are examined using examples of laws and institutions of justice in Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan as a typical model of each of these legal systems. Also discussed is the relative advantage, if any, of any one legal option over another. Section 3 is on the admissibility criteria for bringing complaints to regional or international human rights mechanisms. The criteria are explained by reference to decisions of the treaty bodies on admissibility issues. One of the key admissibility issues that are often raised by the respondent State is that the complainant has not exhausted domestic remedies. This criterion is of particular concern for women victims given that domestic remedies are often not responsive or are inaccessible to women raising gender-related violations. Understanding the basics of the rule of exhaustion of domestic remedies and its interpretation and application is central to raising complaints of sexual violence at the regional and international levels. Sections 4 and 5 examine the possibility of bringing complaints of violations to regional and international human rights treaty bodies. Since the Manual is about litigation strategies for sexual violence in Africa, African regional treaty bodies, including their various provisions that could be used for litigating claims of sexual violence and their decisions that may impact on cases of sexual violence are the focus of the study. The decisions and judgments of European and Inter-American human rights bodies and courts are used to examine precedents that may have an influence on the African mechanisms. Similarly, the international human rights instruments with provisions to address gender-related violations are examined along with some of the relevant decisions of their respective treaty bodies. The decisions and judgments are analysed with the objective to explore their potential to address sexual violence. Possibilities of addressing sexual violence under international humanitarian and criminal laws are the focus of Section 6. While providing information on the articles that relate to addressing sexual violence in the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, this Section explores the judgments of international courts and tribunals that address sexual violence. An analysis of the judgments that apply the REDRESS | INTRODUCTION 3