These closely connected issues are addressed on three levels of analysis. On a global level, the paper describes some of the United Nations activities that relate to the implementation of the 1985 Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice. This leads to an examination of the implementation of victims' rights on the regional level, where the impact of the 1985 Recommendation by the Council of Europe is discussed. On the national level, the paper uses some examples from efforts by the Dutch Government in reviewing new victims' rights legislation in recent years. The author argues that currently there is an obvious lack of empirically tested knowledge of effective implementation strategies for victims' rights. On the other hand, in cases where such knowledge is available, it is often neglected or disregarded by governments that profess to be engaged in constructive reform on behalf of crime victims. A major concern in the implementation of victims' rights is to ensure that the effectiveness and fairness of criminal justice processing is not compromised. Victims should not be allowed to make decisions in case processing, nor should the implementation of victims rights compromise the right to a fair trial for offenders. This paper concludes that it is a major challenge for victimology to design a comprehensive developmental model for the implementation of victims' rights in a criminal justice system. 26 references and 39 notes