In their analyses of specific cases involving armed conflict, the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have acted as monitoring bodies for international humanitarian law (IHL) by factoring that body of law into their interpretation of human rights and State obligations set out in the European and American Conventions on Human Rights. In this article, the author argues that, in such cases, the two courts also acted as monitoring bodies for the rules of IHL designed to protect the dead and missing in both international and non-international armed conflicts. This monitoring function is apparent in the two courts’ judgments, which uphold the obligations of States to search for and identify the dead and missing in armed conflicts, to bury the remains of the dead and to investigate unlawful deaths and cases of forcible disappearance. The author concludes that not only has IHL bolstered the interpretation of the European and American Conventions on Human Rights, but that those two instruments and their interpretation have expanded the content and scope of the rules of IHL that protect the dead and missing in armed conflict.

The aim of this article is to reflect upon accountability under international law through the framework of a specific example. The Turkel Commission is a public commission of inquiry appointed by the Government of Israel. It issued its second and final report, which addresses Israel's mechanisms for investigating violations of international law according to the laws of war, in February 2013. The Report primarily focuses on International Humanitarian Law (IHL) but also attends to International Human Rights Law (IHRL). The duty to investigate under international law is an evolving process because treaty law lacks detail, particularly regarding the manner of conducting an investigation. Under IHRL that duty has been enriched by the jurisprudence of regional human rights courts and soft law. Under IHL duty (which is even sparser in detail) it has been aided by state practice and the jurisprudence of international tribunals. The Turkel Report is the first major study on the duty to investigate and it informs much of the analysis of this article. The article provides a descriptive review of the Report and a critical discussion of the way this current national development offers a meaningful contribution to the development of the obligation imposed by international law to investigate alleged violations.