Protection of human rights in conflict situations: The parameter of international humanitarian law

In situations of armed conflict or occupation, basic rights of persons preserved under the International Law of Human Rights (ILHR) may be impaired at once with infringements of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Genocide, torture, mass forcible transfers, wilful killing and other proscribed acts, when committed during a warlike contention, must be condemned as human rights violations as well as war crimes. The organs of international systems of human rights protection (namely those pertaining to the Inter-American System) use to invoke the IHL as a pattern of interpretation of conventional rules on human rights, inasmuch both fields of Law, i.e. ILHR and IHL, share a common nucleus of rights which cannot be derogated and a common purpose of promoting human life and dignity