A/HRC/18/25 enforced disappearance.14 Article 12 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment also expressly obliges States parties to investigate all allegations of torture, in stipulating that they ensure that their competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction.15 7. With regard to serious violations of international humanitarian law, article 1 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 requires the High Contracting Parties to respect and ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions in all circumstances. Furthermore, the Geneva Conventions all contain a provision obliging the High Contracting Parties to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and to bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts.16 Protocol I additional to the Geneva Conventions (1977) extends the same obligation to the acts defined in article 85 thereof. Article IV of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide requires that persons charged with genocide be tried by a competent tribunal. These provisions are understood to include the obligations to both investigate and prosecute violations of international humanitarian law,17 and illustrate the close link between both obligations.18 Furthermore, in its study on customary international humanitarian law, the ICRC found that there is sufficient practice to establish the obligation on States to investigate war crimes, other than those that qualify as grave breaches, including those allegedly committed in non-international armed conflicts.19 8. The obligation on States to investigate gross violations of human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law has also been reinforced by the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights. 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 define the scope of the obligation to respect, ensure respect for and implement international human rights and international humanitarian law as including the duty to investigate violations 14 15 16 17 18 19 See also arts. 10, 12, para. 3, 13-15, 23. See also arts. 7, which incorporates the principle of aut dedere aut judicare, 2, para. 1, 11, 13, and 16 of the Convention; and Committee against Torture, general comment No. 2. First Geneva Convention, art. 49; Second Geneva Convention, art. 50; Third Geneva Convention, art. 129; Fourth Geneva Convention, art. 146. ICRC, Customary IHL Database, rule 158, available at http://www.icrc.org/customaryihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule158#Fn2. See Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 31, para. 18; Arhaucos v. Colombia, comm. No. 612/1995, views adopted on 29 July 1997, para. 8.8; Bautista de Arellana v. Colombia, comm. No. 563/1993, views adopted on 27 October 1995, para. 8.6. The duty to prosecute is not discussed in this report, but is found in the principle aut dedere aut judicare, as well as provisions of the treaties and conventions mentioned herein. ICRC, Customary IHL Database, rule 158, available at http://www.icrc.org/customaryihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule158#Fn2. There are also provisions for the obligation to search for missing persons in Third Geneva Convention, art. 122; Fourth Geneva Convention, art. 136; First Geneva Convention, arts. 16 and 17; Second Geneva Convention, art. 19 referring to the information bureaux established in accordance with art. 122 of the Third Geneva Convention. See also Additional Protocol I, arts. 32, 33; ICRC, Customary IHL Database, rule 117, available at http://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule117, which states that each party to international or non-international armed conflict must take all feasible measures to account for persons reported as missing as a result of the armed conflict and must provide their family members with any information it has on their fate. 5