I.  INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW AND INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW IN ARMED CONFLICT: LEGAL SOURCES, PRINCIPLES AND ACTORS In order to correctly understand the relationship between international human rights law and international humanitarian law when applied in practice to situations of armed conflict, it is thus important to put this relationship in its legal and doctrinal context. This chapter will address the main elements of this legal framework. It will concentrate firstly on identifying the main sources of both international human rights law and international humanitarian law. Secondly, it will present and compare their main underlying principles. Thirdly, this chapter will deal with the duty bearers in both. A. SOURCES OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW AND INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW While international human rights law and international humanitarian law have different historical and doctrinal roots, both share the aim of protecting all persons and are grounded in the principles of respect for the life, well-being and human dignity of the person.3 From a legal perspective, both international human rights law and international humanitarian law find their source in a series of international treaties, which have been reinforced and complemented by customary international law.4 Taking into account that international human rights law applies at all times—whether In Prosecutor v. Anto Furundžija, the Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia emphasized that the general principle of respect for human dignity was the “basic underpinning” of both human rights law and international humanitarian law. Case No. IT-95-17/1-T, Judgement of 10 December 1998, para. 183. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in Juan Carlos Abella v. Argentina, stated that its authority to apply international humanitarian law could be derived from the overlap between norms of the American Convention on Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions. The Commission stated that the “provisions of common article 3 are pure human rights law […] Article 3 basically requires the State to do, in large measure, what it is already legally obliged to do under the American Convention.” Report No. 55/97, case 11.137, footnote 19. 4 Customary international law is one of the main sources of international legal obligations. As indicated in the Statute of the International Court of Justice, international custom is defined as “evidence of a general practice accepted as law”. Thus, the two components in customary law are State practice as evidence of generally accepted practice, and the belief, also known as opinio iuris, that such practice is obligatory. See in this respect the decision of the International Court of Justice on the North Sea Continental Shelf cases, I.C.J. Reports 1969, p. 3. 3 7