o ensure that “every effort is made … to identify dead persons”.
Furthermore, one of the main purposes of this rule is to prevent the enforced disappearance of persons (see Rule 98) and to ensure that they do not otherwise go missing (see Rule 117), two obligations which apply equally to international and non-international armed conflicts.
No official contrary practice was found with respect to either international or non-international armed conflicts.
The obligation to identify the dead is an obligation of means, and parties have to use their best efforts and all means at their disposal in this respect. According to the practice collected, the measures envisaged here include collecting one half of the double identity disk, autopsies, the recording of autopsies, the establishment of death certificates, the recording of the disposal of the dead, burial in individual graves, prohibition of collective graves without prior identification, and the proper marking of graves. Practice also suggests that exhumation combined with the application of forensic methods, including DNA testing, may be an appropriate method of identifying the dead after burial.
In general, this obligation also requires effective cooperation between all parties concerned. The Plan of Action for the years 2000–2003, adopted by the 27th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in 1999, requires that in order to comply with this rule, “appropriate procedures be put into place at the latest from the beginning of an armed conflict”.