Whilst the legal classification of the acts of violence identified ultimately relies on a judicial process, it is still necessary in order to establish the nature of the violations committed and to determine to what extent they are covered by international humanitarian law and human rights, as required by the Terms of Reference of the Mapping Exercise. Given the impossibility of classifying each of the hundreds of incidents described in the preceding chapters, the legal framework applicable to the main waves of violence has been identified in order to draw conclusions on the overall classification of the incidents or groups of incidents reported.

Several violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law constitute crimes under international law as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, for which the perpetrators may be held criminally liable on an individual basis. The vast majority of the most serious incidents identified in this Exercise constitute crimes under international law, either war crimes or crimes against humanity, and often both at the same time. The question of the concomitant existence of some acts that could be classified as genocide, which is much more difficult to resolve, can not ,nonetheless, be ignored.

Although the inventory set out in the preceding pages includes serious violations of both human rights and international humanitarian law, it should be noted that the vast majority of the crimes reported were committed in the context of an armed conflict, domestic or international, or a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population, and can thus be classified as war crimes and crimes against humanity respectively. In respect of the crime of genocide, it is important to define its constituent components carefully and question the extent to which it applies in the context of some of the incidents identified.