Human rights and international humanitarian law in the Colombian conflict

The involvement of United Nations (UN) mechanisms in armed conflicts may have different effects on influencing the dynamics of the conflict and potentially assisting in the achievement of a peace agreement. This is the case in Colombia, where the United Nations has established an Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) accountable for promoting and protecting human rights in the country. The OHCHR produces annual reports to the UN Commission on Human Rights that allow understanding from an international perspective of the reality of the effects of the armed conflict on the country's human rights and international humanitarian law situation. Similarly, it enables evaluation of the Office's activities in Colombia through its submitted reports. Therefore, this study examines how the situation of human rights and international humanitarian law in Colombia evolved according to the OHCHR annual reports from 2002 to 2018, during the presidential administrations of Alvaro Uribe Velez and Juan Manuel Santos. This study aims to contribute to the literature on Colombian peace studies and conflict resolution studies in relation to the Colombian conflict. The findings of this research suggest specific factors that appear to have affected the situation of human rights and international humanitarian law in Colombia during the armed conflict. The main factors found include the systematic impunity identified in all annual reports, the coordination deficiencies between state entities, a recurring disregard for humanitarian obligations within the armed conflict by the illegal armed groups, a disproportionate impact of the conflict on especially vulnerable groups, and a slow and inefficient implementation of the peace agreement.