A/HRC/45/CRP.7 36. International criminal law recognises a range of modes of liability. Individuals can be held responsible for committing a crime (individually, jointly or through another), ordering, soliciting or inducing the commission of a crime; aiding, abetting or otherwise assisting to facilitate the commission of a crime; or contributing to the commission of a crime by a group acting with a common purpose.27 Military Commanders can be held liable if they knew or should have known that forces under their effective command were committing or about to commit crimes and they failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures to prevent or repress the crimes or to submit them to the competent authorities for investigation and prosecution. Likewise, superiors can be held liable in similar circumstances where they knew or consciously disregarded information clearly indicating that subordinates were about to commit such crimes.28 Members of armed forces, non-State armed groups and political leaders can all be prosecuted before the courts of the State in which they operate, as well as before the courts of other States that apply universal jurisdiction and/or any international courts with relevant jurisdiction. Individuals, including from third States, may also be held criminally responsible if they aid, abet or otherwise assist in the commission of war crimes. 4. State responsibility 37. State responsibility arises under international law where there is an internationally wrongful act (or omission) that is attributable to a State, and where the act constitutes a breach of that State’s international obligations.29 Acts attributable to a State include the conduct of its organs (whether the organ exercises legislative, executive, judicial or other functions),30 the conduct of a person/entity empowered under law to exercise elements of governmental authority,31 and the conduct of persons/groups acting on the State’s instructions or under its direction or control.32 38. International law also recognises that States bear responsibility for “aiding or assisting” another State in the commission of an internationally wrongful act. This arises when States give such aid or assistance with knowledge of the circumstances of the wrongful act, and the act would be wrongful if it had been committed by the assisting State itself.33 IV. Military, political and humanitarian context (July 2019 – June 2020) 39. It has been more than six years since the conflict in Yemen started, and it continues unabated.34 It is estimated that, since the beginning of the conflict, approximately 112,000 people have died as a direct result of hostilities, of whom around 12,000 were civilians.35 A projection in 2019 indicated that over 130,000 people would have died by the end of that year as a result of the worsening socio-economic, health and humanitarian conditions.36 The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights documented that at least 7,825 civilians were killed (including at least 2,138 children and 933 27 Rome Statute, art. 25. Rome Statute, art. 28. 29 International Law Commission Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, arts. 1 and 2. 30 Ibid. art. 4 31 Ibid. art 5. 32 Ibid. art 8. Other less common bases of attribution include acts of organs placed at the disposal of a State by another State (art. 6) and conduct by persons not falling within any of these categories that is acknowledged and adopted by the State as its own (art. 11). 33 International Law Commission Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, and the commentary thereto, art. 16. 34 See A/HRC/39/43, A/HRC/42/17 and A/HRC/42/CRP.1 35 Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), Resources: War in Yemen, available at https://acleddata.com/2020/03/25/acled-resources-war-in-yemen 36 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, Assessing the Impact of War on Development in Yemen, 23 April 2019, available at: https://www.undp.org/content/dam/yemen/General/Docs/ImpactOfWarOnDevelopmentInYemen.pdf 28 14