A/HRC/45/CRP.7 the exercise of jurisdiction outside its territory.16 The Group of Experts has taken the approach that where States exercise power or control over a person, area or facility in Yemen, they must do so in compliance with international human rights obligations.17 2. International Humanitarian Law 31. All parties to the conflict in Yemen are bound by relevant norms of international humanitarian law. The conflict between the armed forces of the Government of Yemen and the Houthis is a non-international armed conflict (NIAC) between a State and a non-State armed group. Within international humanitarian law treaty law, NIACs are regulated by Common Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 (“Common Article 3”), and Additional Protocol II thereto, to which Yemen is a party, provided the relevant thresholds are met. Common Article 3 applies to an “armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties”. Additional Protocol II adopts a narrower definition of NIACs – providing for the scope of its application to a conflict “which takes place in the territory of a High Contracting Party between its armed forces and dissident armed forces or other organised armed groups which, under responsible command, exercise such control over a part of its territory as to enable them to carry out sustained and concerted military operations and to implement this Protocol”. The Group of Experts has previously concluded that the conflict occurring in Yemen meets both threshold tests. It is also bound by other international humanitarian law treaties it has ratified, including those relating to the methods and means of warfare, such as the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (“Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention”). In addition to these treaty obligations, Yemen is bound by all relevant norms of customary international humanitarian law.18 32. As a party to the conflict, the Houthis/de facto authorities are also obliged to abide by these same international humanitarian law norms. The precise legal mechanism by which this occurs is debated.19 However, the application of relevant treaty and customary international humanitarian law norms to all parties in a NIAC is a broadly accepted proposition. Furthermore, as the Group of Experts has noted previously, the de facto authorities have acknowledged in their correspondence with the Group of Experts, the application of international humanitarian law to their forces, both in a general sense and in relation to the 16 Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion of 9 July 2004, ICJ Reports 2004, p 136, paras. 109, 111-113; Most of the academic and judicial focus has been on the extraterritorial application of human rights treaties, but as to arguments in favour of the extraterritorial application of human rights under customary international law, see Noam Lubell, Extraterritorial Use of Force Against Non-State Actors (2011). In its General Comment on the right to life, the Human Rights Committee elaborated that “persons subject to its jurisdiction” covers all persons over whose enjoyment of the right to life a State exercises power or effective control, including persons located outside any territory effectively controlled by the State whose right to life is nonetheless affected by its military or other activities in a direct and reasonably foreseeable manner: General Comment No. 36: Article 6: the right to life (2019), para. 63. 17 In relation to Coalition members, all members have ratified the CERD, CAT and the CRC, all members (besides Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) have ratified the ICCPR and ICESCR, all members (except the United Arab Emirates) have ratified the CPRD, and all members (except the Sudan) have ratified CEDAW. Low ratification rates apply to the CPED and the ICRMW. Full ratification information related to Coalition members can be accessed at <https://indicators.ohchr.org/>. Coalition members are also bound by customary international human rights law. 18 Whilst the existence of a rule of customary international law depends on there being State practice supported by opinio juris, the ICRC Customary Law Study represents a useful starting point in determining the customary status of particular rules: Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise DoswaldBeck, Customary International Humanitarian Law, ICRC/Cambridge, 2005 (hereinafter “ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law”). 19 For a useful summary of the different bases that have been put forward, see Annyssa Bellal and Ezequiel Heffes, “ ’Yes I do’: Binding Armed Non-State Actors to IHL and Human Rights Norms Through their Consent” (2018) 12 Human Rights and International Legal Discourse 121 12