A/HRC/34/64 Annex I Applicable law A. Background 1. During the period under review, the Commission notes that the intensity and duration of the conflict continued to meet the legal threshold for a non-international armed conflict.1 With this determination, the Commission applied international humanitarian law, including article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (“Common Article 3”), in its assessment of the actions of the warring parties during hostilities in Aleppo between 21 July 2016 and 22 December 2016. B. Legal regimes in effect 2. The applicability of international humanitarian law (IHL) does not replace existing obligations under international human rights law (IHRL). Rather both regimes remain in force and are generally considered as complementary and mutually reinforcing. Where both IHL and IHRL apply, and can be applied consistently, parties to a conflict were obligated to do so. In situations where IHL and IHRL were both applicable, the commission deferred to the application of IHL under the principle of lex specialis.2 The specific applicability of each regime is briefly reviewed below. C. International human rights law 3. At all times relevant to this report the Syrian Arab Republic was party to the major United Nations human rights treaties and a number of optional protocols. 3 The Syrian 1 2 3 See, e.g., ICTY, The Prosecutor v. Dusko Tadic, Judgment, IT-94-1-T, 7 May 1997, at paras. 561568; see also ICTY, The Prosecutor v. Fatmir Limaj, Judgment, IT-03-66-T, 30 November 2005, para. 84. See Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 1996 [hereinafter “ICJ Nuclear Weapons”]. The International Court of Justice ruled that IHL is lex specialis vis-à-vis IHRL during armed conflicts. The parties must therefore abide by the legal regime which has a more specific provision on point. The 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 No. 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 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. 23