Like international human rights law, humanitarian law protects the lives and dignity of individuals, prohibiting torture or cruel treatment, prescribing rights for persons subject to a criminal justice procedure, prohibiting discrimination and setting out provisions for the protection of women and children. Humanitarian law applies in armed conflict, restricting the actions of warring parties, providing for protection and humane treatment of persons who are not taking part or can no longer take part in the hostilities. This chapter focuses on international humanitarian law, which differs from human rights law in that it concentrates on specified conflict-related acts and does not give rise to individual claims. Refugee law has been discussed in Part IV. While these fields are closely linked, they need to be distinguished systematically. Today, three areas of modern international law attempt to provide protection to victims of war: human rights law, refugee law and humanitarian law. Therefore, over the years, experts have focused much attention on the formulation of instruments aimed at alleviating human suffering during war and conflict.

It is often during armed conflicts that human rights are infringed upon the most.

Duty to investigate in armed conflict