A/HRC/8/4 page 2 Summary The report describes the Special Rapporteur’s activities in 2007 and then looks at three main issues: the impact of states of emergency on the right to a fair trial, access to justice, and recent developments in international justice. In line with the recommendations of the expert seminar held in Geneva in late 2007, the report contains a proposal for a study to systematize the norms and principles for the protection of human rights during states of emergency, with a view to drafting an instrument or corpus juris to guide States in ensuring the continued effective exercise of fundamental human rights in states of emergency. The report sets out to analyse the two most important aspects of access to justice: access to justice as a fundamental right, and the conditions required for its effective implementation. Although strictly speaking access to justice means the right to effective judicial protection, the term is used with a broader meaning in this report, in order to permit analysis of the justice administration system and the factors that affect access to, and the operation of, justice. The report looks at the content and scope of the right of access to justice, and then in detail at the different economic, social, cultural and operational barriers to the exercise of this right. It examines how access to justice is affected by the type and characteristics of the various courts involved in dispensing justice and the conditions in which judicial actors carry out their work; it also looks at the impact of corruption and judicial delay. It focuses on interesting developments in the enforceability of economic, social and cultural rights and goes on to analyse the way in which certain vulnerable groups’ right of access to justice is impaired. The report ends by indicating the main consequences of shortcomings in access to justice and recommends, in particular, that a database of best practice should be developed in order to help States bridge this serious gap. Lastly, the report indicates the main recent developments in the area of international justice, highlighting the importance of the start of the first trial in the International Criminal Court since its establishment in 2002. It warns of the serious consequences, for the relatives of Sergio Vieira de Mello and 20 other staff members who lost their lives in the 19 August 2003 attack on the United Nations office in Baghdad, of the execution of a witness who could have helped to shed light on the incident. For the Special Rapporteur this is a blatant violation of the right to the truth, one that considerably undermines the Organization’s authority and to which the Human Rights Council should pay particular attention.