A/HRC/40/69 11. The Commission adopted a “reasonable grounds to believe” evidentiary standard. The Commission’s work was informed by the requirement to collect and preserve evidence to a standard that would support future accountability mechanisms, including criminal accountability. 12. Where the Commission found information linking individual alleged perpetrators to specific violations or to patterns of violations that was sufficient to warrant criminal investigations or prosecutions, such information was retained on a strictly confidential basis. In some instances, there was insufficient information to identify individuals responsible for violations, but the armed forces or armed groups responsible have been identified. 13. The Commission employed the best practices of fact-finding aimed at assuring the safety, security, confidentiality and well-being of witnesses. Accordingly, information has been included only where sources granted informed consent and where disclosure would not lead to the identification of sources or result in harm. The Commission thanks the victims and witnesses who shared their experiences. III. Applicable law 14. The Commission conducted its work within the framework of international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international criminal law and the domestic law of South Sudan. 15. South Sudan is a party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and its Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and its Optional Protocol, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Organization of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa. Relevant rules of customary international human rights law are also applicable. The Commission welcomes the accession of South Sudan in 2018 to two of the Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child – on the involvement of children in armed conflict and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography – as well as to the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its Protocol. 16. A non-international armed conflict broke out in South Sudan on 15 December 2013. Consequently, parties to the conflict are bound by common article 3 to the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and their Additional Protocols II and III, and by customary international humanitarian law. Despite the signing of a permanent ceasefire and peace agreement, the Commission assesses that hostilities have persisted to the extent that international humanitarian law continued to apply throughout 2018. IV. Context and background 17. The high-level revitalization forum launched by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, which produced the Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities on 21 December 2017, progressed in its work through the first half of 2018, resulting in the first meeting since July 2016 between President Salva Kiir and former First Vice-President Riek Machar, on 20 June 2018 in Khartoum, and a permanent ceasefire through the Khartoum Declaration on 27 June 2018. 18. On 12 September 2018, the parties to the conflict signed the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan, guaranteed by the Sudan and Uganda. However, some members of the South Sudan Opposition Alliance, including the National Salvation Front, led by Thomas Cirillo Swaka, refused to sign. 19. Since the signing of the Revitalized Agreement, the parties have been working on establishing the National Pre-Transitional Committee and the various bodies overseeing the Revitalized Agreement’s implementation. Although progress has been made on many fronts, many deadlines in the Revitalized Agreement have been missed. The parties began from a 3