A/HRC/45/CRP.7 specialised treaties such as the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction of 1997.20 33. The Group of Experts has previously concluded that member States of the coalition intervening at the request of the Government and supporting it in its operations became parties to the pre-existing NIAC between Yemen and the Houthis as of March 2015. The involvement of the international coalition does not change the non-international character of the conflict given that the international coalition intervened at the request of Yemen in its conflict with a non-State armed group. As such there is no conflict between two or more States, an essential condition for a conflict to be considered an international armed conflict (IAC). As parties to the NIAC, the members of the coalition are bound to respect all applicable international humanitarian law, including Common Article 3 and Additional Protocol II, as well as customary international humanitarian law.21 Members of the coalition are also bound by the additional relevant treaty obligations they have accepted through ratification of various instruments.22 34. Several other NIACs of different levels of intensity remain ongoing in Yemen between the Yemeni armed forces and non-State armed groups, or as between differing nonState armed groups, sometimes in support of or in opposition to a specific party to the main conflict between the Yemeni armed forces and the Houthis.23 This includes the conflict between the Government of Yemen and Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) and the socalled “Islamic State”, and the conflict which emerged between armed groups in the South (affiliated with the STC) and the Government of Yemen. In relation to such parallel noninternational armed conflicts, all parties are similarly bound by relevant provisions of international humanitarian law. 3. International Criminal Law 35. International criminal law provides the framework for considering, at the international level, which egregious violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law, attract individual criminal responsibility. Yemen is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC),24 nor are most coalition members, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.25 This however, does not preclude the Security Council referring the situation in Yemen to the ICC nor a future referral by the Government of Yemen. Furthermore, it does not preclude the exercise of jurisdiction by individual third States that have enacted legislation covering international crimes. The Rome Statute, in particular its coverage of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, has thus been used as the lens through which to consider whether violations committed in Yemen may amount to international crimes.26 20 Letter of 31 May 2019 from the de facto authorities to the Group of Experts, response to question no. 15. 21 All members of the coalition have ratified the four Geneva Conventions and both Additional Protocols of 1977. 22 All members of the coalition, except for Egypt and the Sudan, are parties to the Convention prohibiting Certain Conventional Weapons and two or more of its Protocols. Jordan, Kuwait and Senegal have ratified Amended Protocol II on the prohibition or restrictions on the use of mines, booby-traps and other devices, but the other coalition members are not party to that Protocol or to its original version. However, the majority of coalition States that are State parties to the Convention are parties to Protocol I on non-detectable fragments (except for Bahrain and Senegal) and to Protocol V on explosive remnants of war (except for Jordan). A majority of the current coalition members (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates) have not ratified the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention. Except for Senegal, none is a party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. 23 As the Group has previously acknowledged, the conflict between the Government and the Houthis is more complex than a simple binary conflict: there are shifting loyalties, the proliferation of armed groups and fragmentation of factions. 24 Yemen signed the Rome Statute on 28 December 2000, but has not ratified it. 25 The only members of the coalition that are party to the Rome Statute are Jordan and Senegal. 26 Additional crimes recognized under international law exist, e.g. torture, and enforced disappearance. 13