Warring parties must fully comply with international humanitarian law and protect civilians: UK statement at the UN Security Council
Statement by Ambassador James Kariuki at the UN Security Council meeting on the protection of civilians in armed conflict.
Thank you, President. Let me start by thanking Mozambique for convening this important debate and thank all our briefers, today, for their powerful presentations.
The Secretary-General’s latest report on the protection of civilians presents a stark picture: a 72% increase in civilian deaths in armed conflict from 2022 to 2023; 117 million people experiencing conflict-related hunger; and a ten-fold increase in persons with disabilities in Ukraine due to conflict.
The United Kingdom is also concerned about escalating violence in El Fasher, Sudan, the deaths of civilians in Israel and Gaza, and the shocking levels of conflict-related sexual violence in the central Sahel and the DRC, among many other grave situations.
We should reverse these trends by taking a comprehensive approach to protection. I wish to make three points today.
Firstly, warring parties must fully comply with international humanitarian law and uphold their obligations to protect civilians. They must respect the special rights, needs, and vulnerabilities of children affected by conflict. We call on states to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. This includes in Sudan where the UK’s atrocity monitoring work investigates attacks against civilians and infrastructure, and monitors hate speech and incitement of violence across the country.
Second, we urge all states to take practical steps to improve international humanitarian law implementation, which in turn will enhance protection. The UK is updating our voluntary report on domestic implementation of IHL, with a strong focus on the protection of civilians. We encourage others to undertake similar exercises.
Third, the protection of civilians should always be prioritised in peacekeeping missions. The UK is supporting peacekeepers with training on preventing conflict-related sexual violence, and our programming is increasing the participation of women in uniformed roles and helping to address misinformation and disinformation about missions. We call on member states to deepen their support to peacekeepers to ensure that UN peacekeeping remains an effective tool to protect civilians.
President, to conclude, I stress the importance of working to prevent conflict. And I note that in his long list of events in Ukraine, our Russian colleague forgot to mention the fact that this all could have been avoided without the illegal invasion and aggression against Ukraine.
We must invest in anticipating the risks, working in partnership with national governments and local organisations to address the drivers of conflict. Progress in this area would go some way to ending the harm facing civilians around the world.