Reconsidering Access to Justice within the Broad Range of Accountability of International Organizations

This article reconsiders the generally accepted view around UN peacekeeping, and focuses on ways to enable access to judicial remedies for victims as a solution to fill the prevailing “accountability gap.” This article shows that the concept is not necessarily synonymous with access to justice. Providing access to justice for the victims can be an essential factor in holding UN peacekeeping legally accountable. However, judicial review is not everything in terms of accountability. This article also analyzes the possibilities and limitations of quasi-judicial mechanisms, namely the Independent Accountability Mechanisms of International Financial Institutions and the Human Rights Advisory Panel of the UN Interim Mission in Kosovo, from the perspective of legal accountability. It shows that these mechanisms have contributed to holding the organizations concerned legally accountable.