22 INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN ARMED CONFLICT sections will address how and to what extent different subjects of law are bound by obligations of international human rights and humanitarian law. 1. States International law recognizes that in general States, together with international organizations, are the primary subjects of international law.21 They acquire legal obligations by entering into international treaties and also have legal obligations deriving from customary international law. Thus, subject to lawful reservations dealt with below, States that have ratified international humanitarian law or human rights treaties are bound by their provisions. Moreover, according to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, States that have signed but not ratified a treaty are bound to act in good faith and not to defeat its object and purpose (art. 18). Beyond these general rules, there are some distinctions in the application of international human rights law and of international humanitarian law. International human rights law explicitly protects a very wide range of rights—from the right to be free from torture to the right to education— which can be affected, directly or indirectly, by armed conflict. These human rights obligations, whether positive or negative, apply to the State as a whole, independently from any internal institutional structure and division of responsibilities among different authorities.22 International humanitarian law is primarily, although not exclusively, addressed to States parties to an armed conflict.23 The Geneva Conventions, for example, impose obligations on States and their forces participating    See Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law, pp. 58 ff., and Reparation for Injuries. 22   The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties indicates that “[a] party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty” (art. 27). 23    See, in this respect, article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions, which is addressed to the parties to a non-international armed conflict, including non-State armed groups. 21