In armed conflicts, the uncertainty around facts and violations of IHL has grown due to misinformation, information warfare and deep fakes. IHL foresees some but limited mechanisms aiming at establishing facts and enhancing respect for IHL, including the International Humanitarian Fact-finding Commission (IHFFC).
In practice, a lack of institutional anchoring has been among the reasons why these mechanisms have not been fully effective. The IHFFC’s functioning primarily depends on States that have accepted its competence. Accordingly, the IHFFC has contributed to bilateral exchanges with governments, but also to good offices in order to ensure an attitude of respect for IHL. In 2017, it has conducted its first mission upon the request of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and it is currently providing its good offices to the Republic of Poland in respect of an incident in the Gaza Strip.
This Side-Event will focus on overcoming the perceived split between the usage of institutional human rights mechanisms for IHL implementation, including the Human Rights Council, and the mandate of the IHFFC as an expert body for dispute settlement. The discussion seeks to identify how numerous commissions and fact-finding missions on one hand and the IHFFC’s expertise in IHL on the other hand can mutually benefit from each other in two respects: first, the unique IHL expertise of the IHFFC in line with its impartiality, and, second, other organizations’ institutional and procedural functionality. The Side-Event will aim at illustrating the complementarity of the IHFFC and other bodies, such as UN Commissions of Inquiry, taking into account their different expertise, their different working methods, their different objectives.
