A/HRC/34/64 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 battle for control over Aleppo city, irrespective of the applicability of other legal regimes. 4 4. All branches of the Syrian Government were therefore bound to respect, protect, promote and fulfil 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.5 The Syrian Arab Republic was also bound by relevant rules of IHRL which form a part of customary international law, such as the absolute prohibition against torture. 5. Non-state actors and IHRL: Non-state actors (“armed groups”) cannot formally become parties to international human rights treaties. Armed groups were nevertheless obligated to respect the fundamental human rights of persons forming customary international law, in eastern Aleppo city, where such actors exercised de facto control. 6 The Commission therefore examined allegations of human rights violations committed by the Syrian Government as well as abuses of customary international human rights norms perpetrated by armed groups operating in eastern Aleppo city. D. International humanitarian law 6. Throughout the reporting period, IHL remained binding on all warring parties. 7 Its applicability had been triggered when hostilities met the threshold criteria of “armed conflict.”8 IHL comprises the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 as well as its Protocols I and II and an array of other instruments and customary principles that protect 4 5 6 7 8 24 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 ICJ Nuclear Weapons, statements concerning IHL as lex specialis, supra note 2, at 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), at 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 Commission on Human Rights in 2005). For a more expansive view of the application of IHRL, see Andrew Clapham, Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006). To similar effect, see Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka, 31 March 2011, para. 188, available at http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/Sri_Lanka/POE_Report_Full.pdf. “[I]t is well settled that all parties to an armed conflict, whether States or non-State actors, are bound by international humanitarian law, even though only States may become parties to international treaties.” See Prosecutor v. Sam Hinga Norman, Special Court for Sierra Leone, case SCSL-2004-14AR72(E) (31 May 2004), at para. 22. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions itself states that “each party . . . shall be bound”. The Commission first determined the existence of a non-international armed conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic beginning in February 2012. See, e.g., A/HRC/21/50.