A/HRC/21/50 6. Gross violations of either regime expose the perpetrator to criminal liability at the international level. Courts in any country can employ the principle of universal jurisdiction to try such cases. The definitional elements of international criminal law (ICL), have recently been bolstered with the adoption of the Rome Statute and the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), discussed below. 7. The specific applicability of each regime is discussed below. III. International human rights law 8. At all times relevant to this report the Syrian Arab Republic was a party to the major United Nations human rights treaties and a number of optional protocols.5 The Government did not declare a state of emergency nor otherwise seek to derogate from any of the aforementioned obligations which consequently remained in effect throughout the conflict, irrespective of the applicability of other legal regimes. 6 9. All branches of the Syrian government were therefore bound to respect, protect, promote and fulfill the human rights of all persons within its jurisdiction. The obligation included the right to afford an effective remedy to those whose rights were violated (including the provision of reparations) and to investigate and bring to justice perpetrators of particular violations.7 The Syrian Arab Republic was also bound by relevant rules of IHRL which form a part of customary international law. 5 6 7 46 analysis is fact specific and therefore each regime may apply, exclusive of the other, in specific circumstances. The Human Rights Committee generally concurs with this view as set out in the General Comment 31 to the ICCPR. ―The Covenant applies also in situations of armed conflict to which the rules of international humanitarian law are applicable. While, in respect of certain Covenant rights, more specific rules of international humanitarian law may be specially relevant for the purposes of the interpretation of Covenant rights, both spheres of law are complementary, not mutually exclusive.‖ The International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights were ratified by the Syrian Arab Republic in 1969, the same year it ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The Syrian Arab Republic is also party to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women which it ratified in 2003, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1955, the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment in 2004 and the Convention on the Rights of Child in 1993. The Syrian Arab Republic ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict in 2003. The Syrian Arab Republic has not ratified the Convention on the Non-applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 2004, p. 178, paras. 105–106, ―[t]he protection offered by human rights conventions does not cease in case of armed conflict.‖ See also Nuclear Weapons case, statements concerning IHL as lex specialis, at p. 240, para. 25. See Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 31 on The Nature of the General Legal Obligation Imposed on State Parties to the Covenant (2004), paras. 15–19. In this General Comment, the Human Rights Committee considered that the duty to bring perpetrators to justice attaches in particular to violations that are criminal under domestic or international law, torture and similar cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, summary and arbitrary killing and enforced disappearance. See also the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law, adopted by the General Assembly in December 2005, and the Updated Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights through Action to Combat Impunity (which were recognised in a consensus resolution of the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2005).