A/HRC/14/40 13. It was recalled that the impact of these issues on the ground is visible on a frequent basis. One challenge is to reflect on more effective ways to ensure that human rights and humanitarian law are respected by parties to conflicts. Another challenge is to focus on means of ensuring accountability for those violations when they occur. 14. Georges Abi-Saab introduced the meeting by recalling that during the first expert consultation of 2009, extensive reference was made to the combined application of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in situations of armed conflict. He noted that in practice only one norm applies to each concrete situation. When applicable international human rights norms and international humanitarian norms yield similar results, there is no need for a complex legal analysis. However, he noted that the international law system has evolved to greater specialization and that, therefore, in certain exceptional situations, principles such as that of lex specialis is required to determine which is most detailed norm that applies to each concrete and individual case. Therefore, the combined application of international human rights law and international humanitarian law does not mean two norms are to be applied simultaneously, but rather that one should seek to identify the norm that provides the most specific answer for each particular situation. 15. Mr. Abi-Saab pointed out that, given that the 2009 expert consultation had clarified the legal and substantive questions of the continuous and mutually reinforcing application of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in situations of armed conflict, the meeting was designed to address the question of how different human rights mechanisms have implemented, in their practice, their respective human rights mandates in the context of armed conflict, taking into account the complementary application of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. Such experience, in the form of judicial decisions, treaty bodies’ general comments and concluding observations, special rapporteurs’ reports to the United Nations bodies, and others, constitute a rich body of practice that should be incorporated in the work of the relevant United Nations organs, in particular the Human Rights Council. II. Session 1: Special procedures’ experience in protecting human rights in armed conflict 16. Concerning the experience of human rights special procedures in dealing with the protection of human rights in situations of armed conflict, experts stated that on a number of issues special procedures have applied both international human rights and international humanitarian law in a fully complementary manner. 17. In the case of internally displaced persons, for example, it was indicated that the normative framework applicable to internal displacement resulting from armed hostilities fully integrates relevant international humanitarian law norms and combines them with international human rights law. The fact that two bodies of law were applicable was not seen as a dilemma, but rather as an opportunity. In that respect, it was mentioned that the solution that had been adopted concerning internal displacement was to identify the relevant standards in international human rights law and international humanitarian law and to create a third norm. While in the field of internal displacement there is no specific convention dealing with the issue, the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, which have been acknowledged by the General Assembly as an important framework for this issue, are in fact the result of such combination of applicable standards deriving from both bodies of law. 18. At the level of normative framework, the African Union Convention on Internally Displaced Persons adopts a similar approach. There are several articles in that Convention that contain language typically found in international humanitarian law, such as the 5