A/80/496 the right to leave any country, including one’s own, and to return to one’s country, and the right to nationality. 43. Relevant provisions in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination are complemented by other international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Owing to space limitations, the Special Rapporteur has not included an analysis of such provisions but wishes to highlight their importance and applicability to marginalized racial and ethnic groups. 44. The 1949 Geneva Conventions are the foundational standards within international humanitarian law, which establish legally permissible parameters for armed conflicts to limit their effects. The principle of distinction, which requires that Parties to an armed conflict always distinguish between civilians and combatants, as well as civilian and military objects, is central to the Conventions. The principle of distinction goes hand in hand with the customary principle of precaution. This principle instructs military operations to take constant care to spare the civilian populations and t o avoid and minimize harm to civilians. The Conventions enshrine the principle of non-discrimination by prohibiting discrimination, also known as the prohibition of adverse distinction. This prohibits discrimination against protected persons such as civilians, prisoners of war and the wounded during hostilities. 45. The Geneva Conventions and their additional Protocols have provisions relating to starvation as a weapon of war and non-discriminatory access to humanitarian aid to reduce the civilian harm of conflict. The Special Rapporteur highlights that article 12 of Protocol II Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 prohibits starvation as a method of warfare. Pursuant to the Fourth Geneva Convention, States are required, in situations of international armed conflict, to allow the free passage of all consignments of medical and hospital stores intended only for civilians and for the free passage of all consignments of essential foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under 15 years of age, expectant mothers and maternity cases. Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 broadens this obligation to cover “rapid and unimpeded passage of all relief consignments, equipment and personnel ”. In addition, the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Hague Regulations provide that civilians in occupied territory must be protected and provided with essential services. Humanitarian relief operations must be protected and facilitated and must strictly respect the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence. 46. Another source of international humanitarian law that is highly relevant to the relationship between racial discrimination and conflict is the 1948 Genocide Convention. The Convention was one of the first United Nations conventions to address humanitarian issues and encodes genocide as a crime that occurs during both peace and war, as well as an international crime, which entails the national and international responsibility of individuals and States. In article 2 of the Convention, genocide is defined as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”. The Convention establishes the following as punishable crimes: (a) genocide; (b) conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) direct and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) attempt to commit genocide; and (e) complicity in genocide. 16/21 25-16958