I.  INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW AND INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW IN ARMED CONFLICT: LEGAL SOURCES, PRINCIPLES AND ACTORS and promote human rights.” Moreover, “[t]he international community does have human rights expectations to which it will hold the LTTE, but it has long been reluctant to press these demands directly if doing so would be to ‘treat it like a State’.”26 This approach was reiterated in a joint report on their mission to Lebanon and Israel by a group of four special procedure mandate holders. The report further indicates that “the Security Council has long called upon various groups which Member States do not recognize as having the capacity to do so to formally assume international obligations to respect human rights. It is especially appropriate and feasible to call for an armed group to respect human rights norms when it ‘exercises significant control over territory and population and has an identifiable political structure’.”27 Therefore, it is clear that the application of human rights standards to non-State actors is particularly relevant in situations where they exercise some degree of control over a given territory and population. Taking into account that international human rights law aims at providing rights and protections that are considered to be fundamental for the human being, non-State armed groups are increasingly called upon to observe human rights protections, albeit in a manner that is in accordance with the particular situation on the ground. Indeed, the assumption of international human rights responsibilities by non-State actors is seen as a pragmatic recognition of the realities of a conflict, without which rights holders would lose out on any practicable claim to their human rights. As the obligations of non-State actors under international humanitarian law are well established, the following examples focus only on illustrating the principle that non-State actors can be bound under international human rights law:   The Special Rapporteur further indicated that “[i]t is increasingly understood, however, that the human rights expectations of the international community operate to protect people, while not thereby affecting the legitimacy of the actors to whom they are addressed. The Security Council has long called upon various groups that Member States do not recognize as having the capacity to formally assume international obligations to respect human rights.” See E/CN.4/2006/53/Add.5, paras. 25–27. 27   A/HRC/2/7, para. 19. 26 25