A/HRC/38/44/Add.1 international armed conflicts (Additional Protocol I), and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It is not party to the Protocol additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the protection of victims of noninternational armed conflicts (Additional Protocol II). Iraq is also not signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, nor has it made a declaration accepting the jurisdiction of the Court in relation to the conflict. 14. All parties to non-international armed conflict that meets the threshold of intensity and organization,5 including armed non-State actors, are bound by common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which establishes fundamental rules from which no derogation is permitted. It requires humane treatment for all persons in enemy hands, without any adverse distinction, and specifically prohibits under (1) (a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture, and under (1) (d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all judicial guarantees. 15. In addition, all parties, including those that provide air or other support to any of the warring sides, are also bound by other relevant rules of customary law applicable to noninternational armed conflicts. They must at all times abide by the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution in attack, and may not under any circumstance, inter alia, carry out attacks on civilians or civilian objects, wantonly destroy property, plunder or pillage, or use chemical weapons or resort to collective punishment. 16. The Government bears responsibility for all violations of international humanitarian law committed by its armed forces or those acting under its direction or control. 6 Under customary international law, the Government has to investigate all violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, and ensure full reparation for loss or injury caused by the State.7 Legal framework applicable to ISIL and other armed non-State actors8 3. 17. The labelling of armed groups as “terrorist organizations” does not alter the application of international humanitarian law or the obligations placed on the parties to the conflict. As highlighted above, international human rights law continues to apply during armed conflict. While armed opposition groups cannot become parties to international human rights treaties, they are increasingly deemed to be bound by certain international human rights obligations, including, at the minimum, those considered to be peremptory international law (jus cogens). The Special Rapporteur has also argued that armed non-State actors are bound by a range of human rights obligations determined by the extent and nature of their capacities to exercise territorial control and governance functions (see A/HRC/38/44). Armed non-State actors, exercising de facto authority over a specific territory as a result of having displaced the legitimate State, are bound by the State’s treaty obligations.9 18. ISIL waged war on Iraq from 2014 until its defeat in December 2017. At the height of its power, it seized as much as 40 per cent of the territory. It proclaimed itself a caliphate with exclusive theological and political authority over the world’s Muslims and saw itself as “an all-encompassing entity, one that eventually is meant to shoulder all the responsibilities of traditional state”.10 In the territories it controlled, the group took on a 5 6 7 8 9 10 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), 2016 Commentary on the First Geneva Convention, para. 484. Art. 8 of the articles on responsibility of States for internationally wrongful acts, General Assembly resolution 56/83 of 12 December 2001, annex; ICRC, Customary International Humanitarian Law, Volume I: Rules, rule 149. ICRC, Customary International Humanitarian Law, Volume I: Rules, rules 144, 150, 157 and 158. For United Nations practices supporting the obligations of armed groups to make reparations, see also rule 150. The Government provided a divergent analysis (A/HRC/38/44/Add.4, sect. 1). See, for instance, A/HRC/8/17, para. 9. See www.understandingwar.org/report/isis-governance-syria. 5