A/HRC/11/31 page 3 I. INTRODUCTION 1. In its resolution 9/9, the Human Rights Council invited the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to convene, within existing resources, an expert consultation, open to the participation of Governments, regional organizations, relevant United Nations bodies and civil society organizations, and in consultation with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), on the issue of protecting the human rights of civilians in armed conflict, and requested OHCHR to report on the outcome of that consultation, in the form of a summary of discussions on the above-mentioned issue, to the Council at its eleventh session. 2. The expert consultation was announced on the public website of OHCHR. On 9 April 2009, notes verbales were sent to all permanent missions in Geneva and the President of the Human Rights Council. The expert consultation was held in Geneva on 15 April 2009, in consultation with ICRC, in accordance with Council resolution 9/9. The expert consultation was chaired by Professor Georges Abi-Saab, former judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Appeals Chamber and Honorary Professor, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (see also annex). Representatives from 16 Member States: Algeria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Germany, Hungary, Pakistan, Qatar, the Russia Federation, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, the Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and one from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) attended the meeting as observers. The present report provides a summary of the discussion by the experts. The draft was circulated to the experts for comments. All comments received were taken into consideration when finalizing the report. When reviewing the report, ICRC confirmed that the expert meeting had been organized in consultation with it. It further stated that many of the questions raised during the expert consultation were not, in its view, settled international law. Therefore, ICRC considered it difficult to draw any definitive conclusions at the current stage on many of the substantive legal matters involved or on procedural aspects on improving compliance, such as monitoring and similar mechanisms. 3. The expert consultation comprised one opening session and three substantive sessions. The substantive sessions were structured around three thematic issues: (a) the legal framework, namely the continued application of international human rights law in situations of armed conflict; (b) the relationship between international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including the complementary and mutually reinforcing application of human rights law and international humanitarian law, the question of lex specialis, issues arising from the application of article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other rights of particular relevance; and (c) implementation and monitoring of human rights obligations in situations of armed conflict and accountability for violations, in particular appropriate mechanisms to monitor the implementation of human rights in situations of armed conflict, as well as mechanisms to ensure accountability for violations of human rights. 4. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights opened the expert consultation. The High Commissioner recalled that, in recent decades, many millions of innocent lives of civilians had been claimed and tens of millions more have been permanently displaced. Homes