A/HRC/15/50 Israel and the Palestinian side. The Committee has faced considerable constraints in discharging the other part of its mandate, namely “to monitor” relevant proceedings. Owing to the lack of access to Israel and the West Bank, the Committee was able to visit only the Gaza Strip. While in Gaza, the Committee did not receive any detailed information substantiating claims that criminal or other proceedings had been initiated by the de facto Gaza authorities. 16. III. The Committee has laboured under strict time limitations. Applicable law and standards 17. The General Assembly called upon Israel and the Palestinian side to conduct independent and credible investigations that conform with international standards. The Human Rights Council added to these criteria the requirements of effectiveness and genuineness. Initially, the Committee must identify the standards by which the Israeli and the Palestinian investigations should be evaluated. 18. International standards are derived from the duty to investigate under international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL). Because of the intensity of the clashes between the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the armed Palestinian groups, “Operation Cast Lead” in the Gaza Strip constitutes an armed conflict governed by IHL. The Committee views this conflict as being of an international character, as do both Israel and the Palestinian side.6 Consequently, IHL was applicable to the conduct of hostilities in the Gaza Strip. The other violations alleged in the FFM report, such as those in the West Bank, did not take place within the context of an armed conflict. They must, therefore, be assessed by the yardstick of IHRL. 19. IHL imposes the duty to investigate and prosecute grave breaches of all four Geneva Conventions on High Contracting Parties.7 The duty to investigate and prosecute allegations of war crimes arises also under customary international law.8 Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention requires each High Contracting Party “to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches and bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts.”9 The article requires legal safeguards for the accused in prosecutions, but beyond that, the treaty offers little guidance as to the relevant standards an investigation must satisfy. The ICRC Commentary provides some direction, specifying that the Parties must actively search for and prosecute the accused with speed and that the necessary police action should be taken spontaneously and not merely at the request of another State. The Commentary further provides that court proceedings should be carried out in a uniform manner and that “nationals, friends, enemies, all should be subject to the same rules of procedure and judged by the same courts”.10 6 7 8 9 10 6 See discussion in the FFM report (A/HRC/12/48, paras. 281–285). First Geneva Convention, art. 49; Second Geneva Convention, art. 50; Third Geneva Convention, art. 129; Fourth Geneva Convention, art. 146. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Customary International Humanitarian Law, vol. I, Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise Doswald-Beck, eds. (Cambridge University Press, 2005), rule 158. The Committee follows the position of the FFM report that the substantive rules applicable to either international or non-international armed conflicts are broadly converging in this area (A/HRC/12/48, para. 281). Jean Pictet (ed.), Commentary: Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (Geneva, ICRC, 1958), pp. 592–593.