Guidelines for Understanding, Adjudicating, and Resolving Disputes in Elections not accept complaints from international observers. The inherent distrust in many countries of outsiders participating in a domestic election necessitates that international observers should be non-participants in the election complaint adjudication process. They should refrain from meeting with the judges or arbiters involved in the adjudication of complaints or from filing complaints. However, in the course of investigation and adjudication, an election complaint adjudication body should be permitted to hear evidence from any available witnesses, including international observers, and organizations that sponsor observation missions should have their observers appear voluntarily before the body if requested. Civic and voter education of the electorate, political parties, EMB officials, and observers is crucial to ensure a clear understanding of the electoral complaints adjudication process. Without such efforts, the system of complaint adjudication is liable to be poorly understood, underused, subject to targeted misinformation, and ineffective in fulfilling its stated purpose. International Standards: Concluding Themes The seven international standards discussed in this chapter have been subject to broad application and detailed interpretation in both international and domestic courts. As the body of judicial case law on electoral complaints grows, these principles will become more refined, useful, and consistently applied. It will be a greater challenge to ensure, however, that these complaint adjudication principles work in emerging democracies. The remaining chapters will outline specific programming experiences of election law practitioners who have experience in establishing, improving, or perfecting a system of complaint adjudication rooted in these standards. In its report on the 2007 presidential elections in Kenya, the Kriegler Commission noted that: “Electoral dispute adjudication requires flexibility and pragmatism, an eye to the political exigencies, sometimes even at the cost of strict legalism.”327 This quote illustrates the basic challenges in adopting a practical approach to complaints adjudication. In the remaining chapters of this guide, IFES experts will examine the application of these 327 Kriegler Commission Report, supra note 3, at 142. 94