their superiors and anyone who contributes substantially to the violation.53 Where a non-criminal violation is the responsibility of an entity, such as a parliament or a government ministry, the investigative body might not be able to identify specific individuals, or might choose to identify collectively all the individuals in the entity. Equally, agents of a foreign State who may have contributed to a violation may be identified, owing to the responsibility that flows from their own State’s responsibility.54 Updated principles to combat impunity “Investigations undertaken by a commission of inquiry may relate to all persons alleged to have been responsible for violations of human rights and/or humanitarian law, whether they ordered them or actually committed them, acting as perpetrators or accomplices, and whether they are public officials or members of quasi-governmental or private armed groups with any kind of link to the State, or of non-governmental armed movements. Commissions of inquiry may also consider the role of other actors in facilitating violations of human rights and humanitarian law.”55 2. Violations of international humanitarian law The legal parameters of international humanitarian law violations are set out extensively elsewhere56 and appear here only in summary form, alongside key aspects relating to the identification of individuals. For these purposes, both a party to a conflict and an individual can violate international humanitarian law.57 Individuals can do so in two ways: Impunity Principles, principles 8 (c) and 27 (b); General Assembly resolution 60/147 (2005), “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”, para. 3 (b). See, mutatis mutandi, “Draft articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts”, supra note 46. 54 Ibid. 55 Impunity Principles, principle 8 (c). 56 See for example OHCHR Manual on Human Rights Monitoring, chapter 5, “Applicable International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Framework”, and International Legal Protection of Human Rights in Armed Conflict. 57 States, when parties to an armed conflict, are responsible for international humanitarian law (IHL) violations when these are committed by its organs, including its armed forces; persons or entities it empowered to exercise elements of governmental authority; persons or groups acting in fact on its instructions, or under its direction or control; and private persons or groups whose conduct it acknowledges and adopts as its own. See International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Customary International Humanitarian Law Study, Rule 149. When an individual commits an IHL violation, the State remains “responsible” in the sense of having an international legal obligation to act vis-à-vis the violation. 53 32 ATTRIBUTING INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY