I. INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW AND INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW IN ARMED CONFLICT:
LEGAL SOURCES, PRINCIPLES AND ACTORS
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women and its Optional Protocol;
The Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment and its Optional Protocol;
The Convention on the Rights of the Child and its two Optional
Protocols;
The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All
Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families;
The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from
Enforced Disappearance; and
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its
Optional Protocol.
There is a growing body of subject-specific treaties and protocols as
well as various regional treaties on the protection of human rights and
fundamental freedoms. Moreover, resolutions adopted by the General
Assembly, the Security Council and the Human Rights Council, case law by
treaty bodies and reports of human rights special procedures, declarations,
guiding principles and other soft law instruments contribute to clarifying,
crystallizing and providing principled guidance on human rights norms
and standards, even if they do not contain legally binding obligations per
se, except those that constitute rules of international custom.6
International human rights law is not limited to the rights enumerated in
treaties, but also comprises rights and freedoms that have become part of
customary international law, binding on all States, including those that are
See, for example, resolution 60/147, by which the General Assembly adopted the Basic
Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross
Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International
Humanitarian Law and in which it emphasized their customary nature when it indicated
that the resolution did not entail new international or domestic legal obligations but
identified mechanisms, modalities, procedures and methods for the implementation
of existing legal obligations under international human rights law and international
humanitarian law.
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