A/HRC/17/44 I. Introduction A. Mandate and methods of work 1. On 25 February 2011, the fifteenth special session of the Human Rights Council adopted resolution S-15/1 entitled “Situation of Human Rights in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” which inter alia, decided to dispatch an independent, international commission of inquiry. 2. Accordingly, on 15 March 2011, the President of the Human Rights Council established the International Commission of Inquiry and appointed its three members, M. Cherif Bassiouni (Egypt); Asma Khader (Jordan) and Philippe Kirsch (Canada). The President also designated M. Cherif Bassiouni as the Chairperson of the Commission. As requested by the Human Rights Council, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) established a secretariat to support the Commission. 3. Paragraph 11 of resolution S-15/1 requested the Commission “to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, to establish the facts and circumstances of such violations and of the crimes perpetrated and, where possible, to identify those responsible, to make recommendations, in particular, on accountability measures, all with a view to ensuring that those individuals responsible are held accountable”. 4. Accordingly, the Commission determined that it was required to consider actions by all parties that might have constituted human rights violations throughout the territory of Libya. The Commission was also asked to consider the “facts and circumstances of such violations and of the crimes perpetrated”. Given the Security Council‟s referral of events in Libya to the International Criminal Court, the Commission has also considered events in light of international criminal law. 1 The Commission‟s temporal mandate is not limited and therefore includes violations before, during and after the demonstrations witnessed in a number of cities in Libya in February 2011. With an armed conflict having developed in late February in Libya and continuing during the Commission‟s operations, the Commission looked into both violations of international human rights law and relevant provisions of international humanitarian law, the lex specialis which applies during armed conflict.2 5. In view of the time frame within which it had to complete its work, the Commission necessarily had to be selective in the choice of issues and incidents for investigation. The report does not purport to be exhaustive in documenting the very high number of relevant incidents that occurred in the period covered by the Commission‟s mandate. Nevertheless, the Commission considers that the report is illustrative of the main patterns of violations. 6. The Commission agreed at the outset that it would treat information it obtained on a confidential basis. In order to protect their safety and privacy, the names of the victims, witnesses and other sensitive sources are generally not explicitly referred to in the report unless explicitly agreed by the source and deemed appropriate by the Commission or the case has been otherwise well-publicized. It also decided to limit its contacts with the media 1 2 The Commission has used as its basis articles 6–8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. See Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 2004, p. 178, para. 106. 5