A/HRC/27/56 and/or low sentences not in line with underlying evidence, further eroding the trustworthiness of the judicial system; (c) Individuals bearing the greatest responsibility may end up being the major beneficiaries of the resulting de facto limited criminal liability, while low-level perpetrators are the focus of whatever investigations are launched; (d) Failing to address cases taking into account the pattern and systemic nature of the violations results in victims testifying in several cases in a unorganized manner, leading to their possible retraumatization, revictimization and even security risks; (e) Specific crimes requiring specialized prosecutorial and investigatory efforts, including sexually-related crimes and the recruitment and use of children in hostilities, are frequently not sufficiently brought to justice;14 (f) The case-by-case approach renders it difficult to establish links between the different cases, identify patterns of violations and ascertain chains of command, all of which are essential precisely wherever violations are not isolated occurrences but the result of systems of crime. This approach, therefore, is not an effective means for disabling the structures that enabled the violations to occur in the first place, one of the most urgent aims of a transitional prosecutorial strategy. 37. Refraining from prosecuting mass violations is not an option since this omission in itself constitutes a new violation of international human rights obligations. The question is how to muster and organize available resources — institutional, political, human and material — to maximize the impact of criminal justice measures. 38. Failure in the area of prosecutions affects the perception of transitional justice initiatives overall. In Liberia, for instance, the lack of prosecutions has called into question the entire spectrum of transitional justice measures, including the serious efforts made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.15 This is true even of the well-known South African experience, where the absence of prosecutions cast a shadow over the entire framework, which led the former head of the Commission to stress the “‘unfinished business’ of the TRC healing”.16 39. Importantly, the use of inadequate or unjustified criteria in the distribution of prosecutorial resources can result in new or renewed ways of discrimination and rights violations, which may undermine the effort to overcome past violations and establish a new social order based on justice, equality and the rule of law. It may even provoke a renewal of violence by creating feelings of injustice and resentment against the institutions.17 40. To sum up, the systemic nature of past violations concerns not only the rights of victims, whose redress is immediately at stake, but the validity of the rights of all 14 15 16 17 8 International Criminal Court, Office of the Prosecutor, Policy Paper on Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes (June 2014) (www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/otp/OTP-Policy-Paper-on-Sexual-and-Gender-BasedCrimes--June-2014.pdf). There have been no prosecutions for war crimes in Liberia and only a handful abroad, the most important of them being the conviction of the former president, Charles Taylor, by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “‘Unfinished business’ of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s healing” (http://mg.co.za/article/2014-04-24-unfinished-business-of-the-trc-healing). Morten Bergsmo and María Paula Saffon, “Enfrentando una fila de atrocidades pasadas: ¿cómo seleccionar y priorizar casos de crímenes internacionales centrales?” in Kai Ambos, ed., Selección y priorización como estrategia de persecución en los casos de crímenes internacionales (2011), p. 26.