A/HRC/4/80 page 9 17. In Breidjing Camp, which opened in May 2005 and houses more than 29,000 people, members of the Mission held a general meeting with 70 camp leaders and residents, including both men and women. Subsequently, we again divided into three teams, the first meeting with a group of about 30 women, the second with male victims of violence, and the third with a cross-section of camp residents. Again, the Mission heard details of human rights violations committed in Darfur. (c) Document review 18. The HLM was provided with relevant United Nations and African Union documentation, and received additional documentation from many with whom it met and corresponded, including from human rights and humanitarian relief agencies and non-governmental organizations. (For a full list of documents consulted, see annex IV.) B. The responsibility to protect 19. In a landmark decision at the World Summit in September 2005, the international community, building on the obligations of member States under the Charter of the United Nations, formally embraced the principle of the responsibility to protect. In doing so, it declared that every State has the responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, and that, where a state is unable or unwilling to do so, it is the responsibility of the international community to take action to ensure effective protection. In assessing the human rights situation in Darfur and the needs of the Sudan in that regard, and in formulating our recommendations, we considered that the effective protection of civilians in Darfur was the central issue at hand. 20. The Sudan joined in the adoption of the World Summit Outcome, explicitly accepting its responsibility to protect and pledging to act in accordance with it.1 With its ratification of various human rights and humanitarian law treaties it has also accepted specific legal obligations that underpin this responsibility.2 In signing other treaties while not yet ratifying them, it remains legally bound to refrain from acts that would defeat the objects and purposes of those treaties.3 1 Subsequently, on 28 April 2006, the Security Council passed resolution 1674 (2006) reaffirming the provisions of paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome document regarding the responsibility to protect. In addition to condemning violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, the resolution also states that “ending impunity is essential” to address abuses against civilians during armed conflict and prevent such abuses in the future. 2 These treaties include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; and the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights; and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. 3 These include the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.