II.  REQUIREMENTS, LIMITATIONS AND EFFECTS OF THE CONCURRENT APPLICABILITY OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW AND INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW IN ARMED CONFLICT abolished in war but, instead, only affects one aspect of it, namely the relative assessment of arbitrariness of the use of a certain weapon.91 Thus, cases involving the killing of civilians in an attack by a party to a conflict imply the application of the international humanitarian law principles of distinction and proportionality as lex specialis, with the relevant provisions of the Covenant being applied as complementary norms. It could be argued that in this advisory opinion the Court recognized the lex specialis status of international humanitarian law as a whole in situations of armed conflict. This conclusion is not supported by the subsequent practice of the Court. In a 2004 advisory opinion the Court further clarified its understanding of the principle of lex specialis when it indicated that some rights may be exclusively matters of international humanitarian law, others may be exclusively matters of human rights law, while others may be matters of both these branches of international law (see sect. 1 above). As indicated above, this view has been further reinforced by the Human Rights Committee’s interpretation of the principle of lex specialis in its general comment No. 31 (2004). In practical terms, it is important to reiterate that the use of the lex specialis principle is required only when there is an apparent conflict between two norms that could be applied to a specific situation. The identification of which rule will have pre-eminence depends on an examination of the facts and of the particular protection included in the relevant rules. As the Study Group of the International Law Commission correctly indicates, the principle of lex specialis “does not admit of automatic application.”92 First, it is not always easy to determine which norm provides the most specific regulation to apply in a particular circumstance. A careful analysis of each concrete situation will be required.   91 Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, para. 25.   A/CN.4/L.682, para. 58. 92 61