This guidance draws upon that practice and presents it together with a discussion on key policy questions. The text is structured around two broad areas: 1. How to collect and analyse information on responsible individuals, and the legal and investigative challenges involved; 2. How to manage the information once collected, and maximize its use, including by reporting, sharing and safeguarding it. The guidance builds on OHCHR’s existing guidance and practice for CoIs, FFMs and other investigations.5 Many methodological issues relevant to identifying those responsible for violations are covered in other OHCHR publications and resources.6 These are referred to in the text and are expanded upon in areas relevant to identifying individuals. The guidance sets out both the minimum steps that all investigative bodies should complete and additional measures that can and should be taken where feasible, and if resources permit. Each section ends with either Recommendations or a Summary of key guidance on the points raised. As used in the text, the phrases “those allegedly responsible” and “alleged perpetrators” refer only to individuals, unless otherwise specified. Certainly other entities can be “responsible” for or commit violations and crimes, such as an organizational unit (e.g., a battalion or militia, or a non-State actor), a service or institution (e.g., the police), a party to an armed conflict, or a State. The focus in this guidance, however, is on the identification of individuals within the context of investigations by CoIs, FFMs, OHCHR and others, and primarily – though not exclusively – on those individuals bearing responsibility either at the highest levels of a hierarchy or for the most serious violations and crimes. The term “identification” means assessing the information available and making a determination, pursuant to the appropriate standard of proof employed in a human rights inquiry, that an individual is believed to be responsible for a particular violation, crime or abuse. “Responsibility” as used here recognizes many forms, on different levels, such as political, moral, disciplinary, administrative, civil, etc. It does not mean that the individual has been found “guilty” in the criminal legal sense,7 nor does the fact that a person is not “identified” imply they are innocent. OHCHR Commissions of Inquiry and Fact-Finding Missions on International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law: Guidance and Practice, hereinafter referred to as Guidance and Practice, 2015. 6 See, for example, OHCHR Manual on Human Rights Monitoring. 7 A domain reserved for a full criminal trial where all the due process protections relevant in international human rights law have been afforded. 5 12 ATTRIBUTING INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY