A/HRC/34/23 Inter-American system, and OHCHR regularly consulted the registries of regional mechanisms to ensure that complaints that had been received were not being handled in another jurisdiction. 36. Treaty bodies also referred to the jurisprudence of regional mechanisms when adopting decisions and views. There had been informal staff exchanges between OHCHR and the European Court of Human Rights. 37. In 2015, OHCHR had set up a programme to support States in building their reporting capacity and conducted training for 177 State officials from five subregions. 38. In addition, all treaty bodies regularly invited national human rights institutions, the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions and civil society organizations to submit information and attend their sessions. 39. The Chairs of the human rights treaty bodies had endorsed the guidelines against intimidation and reprisals in San José, Costa Rica, in 2015 and recommended that they be adopted by all the treaty bodies. 40. The Arab Human Rights Committee engaged with other regional mechanisms to enhance cooperation and share information and good practices. It had issued a manual on the participation of civil society organizations, national human rights institutions and other stakeholders. The manual included information on submitting parallel reports and in-person participation. 41. The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights held annual meetings with civil society organizations. In close cooperation with OHCHR, it had published a handbook on national human rights institutions and developed an online tool on their engagement with non-judicial mechanisms for the resolution of human rights violations. 42. The Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States interacted with and relied on the expertise of civil society organizations and allowed them to submit amicus briefs in some complex human rights cases. The Court, recognizing that access to justice was key to the protection of human rights, held external sessions in the territory of its member States to bring justice closer to the people. 2. Challenges and lessons learned 43. Workshop participants noted that, although the role of civil society and national human rights institutions in the work of human rights mechanisms was recognized under a number of legal frameworks, NGOs were required to be in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council to take part in mechanisms of the Human Rights Council, and obtaining such status could be lengthy and resource intensive. 44. Furthermore, the engagement of civil society organizations with various mechanisms was limited by a lack of resources, a lack of knowledge of the existing procedures, a lack of interpretation into different languages, including sign languages, and procedures for engagement that differed from one mechanism to another. 45. Civil society actors may face reprisals following their engagement with regional and international human rights mechanisms. Participants warned that the intimidation of human rights advocates and defenders was common. Several States had adopted legislation stigmatizing human rights defenders. 3. Forms of cooperation 46. National human rights institutions requested feedback from treaty bodies and other mechanisms on the utility of their input and reports, as such feedback would improve their performance. 7