A/HRC/11/31 page 7 threshold, international humanitarian law was not applicable and only human rights law applied. In recent cases, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia had alluded to a large variety of criteria that could be taken into account to determine the existence of a situation of armed conflict. 13. Concerning the concurrent application of international human rights and international humanitarian law to particular cases in situations of armed conflict, it was pointed out that both bodies of law were complementary and not mutually exclusive. In this context, it was recalled that, as the International Court of Justice had recognized in The wall advisory opinion and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda decision, the protection offered by human rights conventions did not cease in the event of armed conflict, save through the effect of provisions for derogation of the kind found in article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It was recalled that the Court envisaged three possible situations with regard to the relationship between international humanitarian law and human rights law: (a) some rights may be exclusively matters of international humanitarian law; (b) others may be exclusively matters of human rights law; (c) yet others may be matters of both these branches of international law. Some experts explained that bodies of law as such did not function as lex specialis. It was recalled that the lex specialis principle meant simply that, in situations of conflicts of norms, the most detailed and specific rule should be chosen over the more general rule, on the basis of a case-by-case analysis, irrespective of whether it was a human rights or a humanitarian law norm. The issue of complementarity was also further discussed in the session that followed. 14. It was recalled that the Human Rights Committee, in its general comment No. 29, indicated that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights applied also in situations of armed conflict to which the rules of international humanitarian law were applicable. Given that both bodies of law were complementary, with regard to certain rights envisaged by the International Covenant, more specific rules of international humanitarian law may be especially relevant for the purposes of the interpretation of those rights. It was highlighted that there had to be some type of test against which each situation would need to be assessed in order for the most adequate legal framework to be determined. There was a suggestion that such a test could be framed in the context of effective control: the more effective the control over persons or territory, the more applicable human rights law would be. In this respect, it was argued that the human rights law paradigm posited effective control over a population, while the international humanitarian law paradigm posited a breakdown of power as a result of armed conflict. As a way to inform the lex specialis principle in the context of armed conflict, it was suggested that, the more stable the situation, the more the human rights paradigm would be applicable; the less stability and effective control, the more the international humanitarian law paradigm would be applicable to supplement human rights law. This approach nevertheless may raise complex legal questions. 15. It was underscored that effective control over individuals could occur in a context of the overall lack of control of a territory. Lack of control over territory should not, however, lead to ignoring the human rights paradigm. Moreover, it is also possible to have real control over individuals in non-stable environments. In those situations, international humanitarian law may offer better protection than human rights law. In this respect, it should be taken into account that control over individuals did not mean that there was total control over territory. Similarly,