understanding of the minimum protections that civilians are guaranteed during an armed conflict and the nature of the conflict. Example: The prohibition against torture under international law Under international law, the prohibition of torture is absolute. This means that there are no circumstances under which a State is allowed to inflict torture. Torture is prohibited in a number of international human rights instruments and under international humanitarian law, and is considered an international crime. Because of the degree of international support for the prohibition of torture, all countries are bound by the prohibition. Torture occurs when there is the infliction of severe mental or physical pain or suffering. A violation occurs when the conduct is carried out with either: o the consent or acquiescence of state authorities, or o in the context of an armed conflict, by a party to the armed conflict who knows that the victim was not taking active part in hostilities. Generally, the conduct must be carried out for a specific purpose, such as gaining information, punishment, or intimidation. Torture may include rape and other forms of sexual violence.  Determine what information is needed and how to obtain it In determining which documentation techniques to use, consideration must be given to the kind of information needed to allow an evaluation of the existence or nonexistence of human rights abuses. This may include:  direct sources (such as victims, witnesses, and evidentiary materials); and  secondary sources (such as reports from other human rights organizations, media reports, etc). Secondary sources can be particularly useful as a means of verifying information gathered first-hand. The UN advises that “the most commonly applied rule of reliability in human rights fact-finding is the principle that information should be consistent with material collected from independent sources.”17 Secondary sources should also be credible.  Determine the standard of proof A potentially important component of your methodology is the standard of proof that you seek to apply. For example, this will be a relevant consideration if you plan to undertake ‘fact-finding’ in addition to documentation, that is, if you plan to draw conclusions of fact from your documentation activities. If so, the objectives of your project will need to reflect that you are seeking “sufficient evidence” to draw a conclusion in relation to an alleged human rights violation. “Sufficient evidence” or balance of probabilities is a coherent starting point for a standard of proof18 and is a commonly used standard of proof among humanitarian and human rights factfinding missions. To meet this standard, the event or proposition in question must be more likely to be true than not to be true.19 If the relevant conclusions are to be relied on in a judicial process, or if they publicly attribute blame to particular individuals, a stricter standard of proof may be 9