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Report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador

UN Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, From Madness to Hope: The 12-Year War in El Salvador, Report, 15 March 1993, in UN Secretary General, Letter to the President of the Security Council (S/25500), Annex. (PDF link)


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2. International humanitarian law

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C. METHODOLOGY


3. Conclusions

With few exceptions, serious acts of violence prohibited by the rules of humanitarian law applicable to the Salvadorian conflict are also violations of the non-repealable provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights, the two human rights treaties ratified by the State of El Salvador. The two instruments also prohibit derogation from any rights guaranteed in any humanitarian law treaty to which the State is a party.

As a result, neither the Salvadorian State nor persons acting on its behalf or in its place can claim that the existence of an armed conflict justified the commission of serious acts of violence in contravention of one or other of the human rights treaties mentioned above or of the applicable instruments of humanitarian law binding on the State.