A/HRC/40/CRP.1 The Council mandated the Commission to include “determin[ing] and report[ing] the facts and circumstances of, collect[ing] and preserv[ing] evidence of, and clarify[ing] responsibility for alleged gross violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes, including sexual and gender-based violence and ethnic violence, with a view to ending impunity and providing accountability, and to make such information available also to all transitional justice mechanisms, including those to be established pursuant to chapter V of the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan, including the hybrid court for South Sudan, once established in cooperation with the African Union.”3 The Council further requested in Resolutions 34/25 and 37/31 that the Commission continue to monitor the human rights situation in South Sudan and make recommendations to prevent its further deterioration. The Commission is also to report on the factual basis for transitional justice and reconciliation and to provide guidance on transitional justice, including accountability and reconciliation and healing, as appropriate, and – once the Government of South Sudan commits to cooperating with the African Union on establishing the hybrid court for South Sudan – to make recommendations on technical assistance to the Government to support accountability, reconciliation and healing. The Commission is further mandated to engage with the Government of South Sudan, international and regional mechanisms, including the United Nations, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, the African Union, including by building upon the work of its Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan and its African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, including the Partners Forum, the Chair of the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission, and civil society, with a view to providing support to national, regional and international efforts to promote accountability for human rights violations and abuses. Furthermore, the Commission is mandated to make recommendations on technical assistance and capacity-building, as appropriate, including to law enforcement institutions, on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, including on addressing sexual and gender-based violence. B. 1. Methodology Standard of Proof Consistent with the practice of other United Nations fact-finding bodies, the Commission employed a “reasonable grounds to believe” standard of proof in making factual determinations on individual cases, incidents, and patterns of conduct. These factual determinations provided the basis for the legal qualification of incidents and patterns of conduct as human rights violations and, where appropriate, war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, the Commission’s mandate to collect and preserve evidence to be provided to various accountability mechanisms including the Hybrid Court for South Sudan and the other transitional justice mechanism set out in Chapter V of the R-ARCSS also provided guidance for the secretariat’s working methods. The Commission thus sought to collect and preserve evidence to a standard that will support future accountability mechanisms. This included collecting detailed witness statements and official documentation, while preserving a clear chain of custody, and cataloguing and organizing evidence in a database which can support future criminal investigations and accountability processes. The Commission is satisfied that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that an incident or pattern of conduct has occurred only when it has obtained a reliable body of information, consistent with other material, upon which a reasonable and ordinarily prudent person would believe that the incident or pattern of conduct has occurred. While this standard of proof is lower than the standard required in criminal proceedings to achieve a conviction, it is sufficiently high to justify further investigations into the incident or pattern of conduct. The findings may also constitute prima facie grounds to initiate a possible prosecution. The findings of the Commission appearing in this report are therefore based on the “reasonable grounds” standard of proof. 3 Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council on 23 March 2018, A/HRC/RES/37/31, para. 15(b). 7