Under international humanitarian law parties to conflicts must protect civilians by OCHA, International Committee of the Red Cross   Apr. 2025   UN Security Council: "World getting more dangerous for civilians on your watch"   Briefing to the United Nations Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine by Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator. (Extract)   "My two asks today of the Security Council and, indeed, the wider international community go beyond Ukraine alone.   Firstly, I must reiterate that under the international humanitarian law that this Council is here to defend, parties to conflicts must protect civilians and civilian infrastructure. Indiscriminate attacks on them are strictly prohibited:   There must be limits to how war is waged. At its best, this Council, and the Member States here, have upheld that idea – even wars have rules. Is that not why we are here?   And yet, on my visits from Ukraine to Gaza to Sudan to Lebanon to Myanmar – from where I returned yesterday – I am seeing the opposite: that not only are we not standing robustly for international law, but in some cases we are supporting its debasement.   That's the common thread that links these conflicts. And if your principles apply only to your opponents, they are not humanitarian principles.   The world is getting more dangerous for civilians, on our watch. Please, you can do more to ensure that this era of increasingly belligerent, transactional, self-defeating nationalism is not also remembered as one of callous impunity and brutal indifference, in which the rights of civilians are discarded again and again with a shrug.   If we do not make our stand on this point, consistently and unequivocally, then what do we stand for anymore? And how can we expect anyone to listen to us, or hope that others will make better choices in the future?   My second ask, is the funding to save lives in an increasingly dangerous environment, and this era of savage cuts. If you cannot stop the attacks on civilians – in Ukraine and elsewhere – please, at least give us the security and resources to save as many survivors as we can".   http://www.unocha.org/news/un-relief-chief-warns-security-council-protection-civilians-unraveling-amid-global-inaction   NGO Statement Ahead of the Open Debate on Protection of Civilians:   One year after the UN Secretary-General outlined the “resoundingly grim” state of civilian protection, the situation continues to deteriorate. 21 NGOs call for urgent action by the UN Security Council and UN Member States to strengthen accountability and ensure robust implementation of protection mandates.   Civilians living in conflict zones today are in more danger than ever before. The UN recorded a 72% increase in civilian deaths in armed conflict between 2022 and 2023, with the proportion of women and children killed doubling and tripling respectively. Over 473 million children — more than 1 in 6 globally — now live in areas affected by conflict. In 2023, UN-verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence, the majority against women and girls, increased by 50 per cent compared with 2022.   Intersecting and multidimensional vulnerabilities are also compounded for marginalised groups. Those who survive are often injured, displaced, and frequently cut off from their communities and support networks. As a result they can become reliant on humanitarian aid for services such as healthcare, water, electricity, and education for years or even decades.   The use of explosive weapons in populated areas continues to have a devastating effect on civilians, causing both immediate harm and long-lasting cumulative and reverberating impacts. These attacks are often fuelled by third party arms transfers. The resultant patterns of harm not only deepen humanitarian need, but also undermine the foundations for sustainable peace.   When civilian infrastructure and the natural environment are destroyed and social cohesion fractured, the road to recovery is steeper and longer, impeding justice and increasing the risk of renewed violence.   Parties to conflict are, in many cases, intentionally undermining the international norms and standards designed to protect civilians from the conduct of war and are deliberately violating International Humanitarian Law (IHL), eroding even the bare minimum of protections owed to civilians.   Of particular concern is the speed with which States are backsliding on their commitments to protect — and ensure the protection of — civilians. Consequently, the deliberate targeting of civilians is becoming a tool of warfare, further fuelling a culture of impunity.   The humanitarian consequences are staggering. 305.1 million people are in humanitarian need, a number that has quadrupled in the past decade, primarily driven by conflict. 123 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide, double the figure from 2015, and 281.6 million people are experiencing crisis or worse of food insecurity (IPC 3+).   While these statistics are unfathomably high, each number represents an individual — a farmer who has lost access to their livelihood and is struggling to feed their family, an elderly person displaced multiple times and living in a camp, a child not able to go to school.   Across the world, humanitarian actors and civil society are working relentlessly to respond to the escalating needs of conflict-affected populations, while facing growing risk of harm and operational constraints. Local actors, including women-led organisations, face the greatest risk.   Across the board, resources are being slashed or politicized, further intensifying the level of risk borne by local actors. Amid this dire reality, civilians themselves are seeking to hold their communities together under immense strain and standing firm in their calls for peace and justice. They need the international community to not just bear witness, but to act.   The 2025 UNSC Open Debate must confront this truth: there is no shortage of tools to protect civilians, but there is a shortage of political will to use them equally and follow through with practical implementation and accountability.   From legal instruments and policies, early warning mechanisms, civilian harm tracking, and civilian-military dialogues to sanctions, independent investigations, and accountability and remedy mechanisms — these tools are too often sidelined and ignored rather than being leveraged, supported, prioritised, and fully integrated.   Diplomacy is failing. At the United Nations Security Council the most powerful countries in the world are making ineffective the body charged with ensuring international peace and security. In the past 10 years, the permanent members used their powers to veto resolutions at least 36 times. 2024 saw the fewest UNSC resolutions adopted since 1991 and the highest number of draft resolutions failed due to veto since 1986.   The UN turns 80 this year. Instead of retreat there must be renewed urgency in support of — and commitment to — multilateralism, the UN Charter, and the international rules-based order, with the protection of civilians at its core.   Impunity feeds on itself. In the absence of real accountability for harm caused and the just and equitable application of international law and standards at all times and in all places, this dangerous cycle characterized by compounding harms and prolonged suffering will continue.   http://www.unocha.org/news/world-getting-more-dangerous-civilians-your-watch-un-relief-chief-tells-security-council http://reliefweb.int/report/world/2025-ngo-statement-ahead-open-debate-protection-civilians http://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/speech/2025/05/speech-there-is-no-pathway-to-peace-that-does-not-begin-with-the-protection-of-women-and-girls http://www.unicef.org/topics/armed-conflict http://www.unicef.org/children-under-attack http://data.stopwaronchildren.org   http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2025/04/hundreds-killed-rsf-attacks-sudans-north-darfur http://news.un.org/en/story/2025/04/1162196 http://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20250411-un-finds-36-israeli-strikes-on-gaza-killed-only-women-and-children http://www.globalr2p.org/publications/atrocity-alert-no-440/ http://www.globalr2p.org/publications/atrocity-alert-no-435/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/04/comment-un-human-rights-office-spokesperson-ravina-shamdasani-continued   http://reliefweb.int/report/world/tools-protection-upholding-object-and-purpose-international-humanitarian-law-protecting-civilian-infrastructure-and-hospitals-side-event-during-poc-week-2025-friday-23-may-830-1000 http://reliefweb.int/report/world/epidemic-violence-violence-against-health-care-conflict-2024 http://www.unocha.org/publications/report/south-sudan/un-deplores-air-strike-hospital-south-sudan http://www.msf.org/msf-condemns-bombing-our-hospital-south-sudan http://www.msf.org/attacks-medical-care http://www.who.int/activities/stopping-attacks-on-health-care http://interagencystandingcommittee.org/open-letter-member-states-un-general-assembly-behalf-iasc-principals http://www.hhrjournal.org/2024/06/07/drone-attacks-on-health-in-2023-international-humanitarian-law-and-the-right-to-health/ http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)01115-7/fulltext   http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/monthly-forecast/2025-05/protection-of-civilians-8.php http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/protection-of-civilians/ http://civiliansinconflict.org/press-releases/civic-launches-first-protection-of-civilians-trends-report-and-civilian-protection-index/ http://www.civilianprotectiontrends.org/index.html http://civiliansinconflict.org/blog/there-is-no-safe-place-for-civilians-in-conflict-qa-with-hichem-khadhraoui/ http://civiliansinconflict.org/remarks/civic-executive-director-addresses-unsc-open-debate-on-protection-of-civilians-in-armed-conflict http://www.hrw.org/news/2025/05/14/un-security-council-should-commit-people-disabilities http://www.unocha.org/publications/report/world/ocha-message-international-humanitarian-law http://www.unocha.org/humanitarian-access http://www.unocha.org/protection-civilians   * Protection of civilians in armed conflict - Report of the Secretary-General (May 2025): http://docs.un.org/en/S/2025/271   Mar. 2025   Speech given by Mirjana Spoljaric, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, at the 58th session of the UN Human Rights Council. (Extract)   "Today violations that were once considered abhorrent have, disturbingly, become normalized in conflicts around the world.   I stand before you to remind us of an undeniable truth: Every patient killed in a hospital bed, Every family buried under the rubble of their home, Every hostage stolen from their loved ones, Every prisoner tortured and deprived of basic dignity, Every city levelled, and every village destroyed – These are not unfortunate realities of war. They are a betrayal.   We must not become numb to that fact, or we risk sleepwalking into a world where the barriers that once restrained brutality in war are removed. The scale of the suffering we witness is not inevitable. It is the direct result of dismissive interpretations of international humanitarian law.   People have the power to change course, but it will require courage and leadership to move past divisions and recommit to the fundamental belief that human life must transcend political divides – both in war and in peacetime.   Together, international humanitarian law and international human rights law share a common goal: to protect human life, health, and dignity, no matter what country you were born in or what side of the front line you live on.   These bodies of law are mutually reinforcing. They need one another. The erosion of respect for one contributes to the erosion of the other.   In war, how can the right to health be fulfilled if hospitals are bombed? How can the right to food prevent hunger if crops are destroyed? How can children see their right to education come true if schools are attacked?   There is no right to life when civilians, and the infrastructure they rely on for survival, are systematically targeted. International humanitarian law exists to protect them in times of war.   The way wars are fought today will inform the way they are fought tomorrow. Where basic humanitarian rules are violated, rebuilding costs skyrocket, and new security threats fester.   We can choose a different path, one that promotes life, stability, and prosperity. This starts with committing to international humanitarian law and making it a political priority."   International humanitarian law (IHL) is a set of rules that seeks, for humanitarian reasons, to limit the effects of armed conflict. It protects persons (civilians) who are not participating in hostilities, and imposes limits on the means and methods of warfare.   IHL is also known as “the law of armed conflict”. IHL is part of public international law, which is made up primarily of treaties, customary international law and general principles of law. The four Geneva Conventions of 1949 (GC I, II, III and IV), which have been universally acceded to or ratified, constitute the core treaties of IHL.   IHL applies equally to all sides, regardless of who started the fighting and regardless of motives.   Persons (civilians) protected by IHL are entitled to respect for their lives, their dignity, and their physical and mental integrity. They are also afforded various legal guarantees. They must be treated humanely in all circumstances, with no adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion, faith, sex, birth, wealth, or any other similar criteria.   It is forbidden to murder them, or to subject them to torture. The wounded and the sick must be collected and cared for. In order to ensure the performance of these medical activities, medical personnel, units and transports must be respected and protected.   Access to humanitarian assistance for the civilian population affected by the conflict must be allowed and facilitated. Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is specifically prohibited under IHL.   Under IHL, humanitarian personnel and objects must be respected and protected. Prioritized measures must be afforded to certain groups of people, including children, women or persons with disabilities, this means they must be afforded specific respect and protection.   Restrictions on the means of warfare and the methods of warfare.   The right of parties to a conflict to choose means or methods of warfare is not unlimited. Restrictions apply to the type of weapons used, the way they are used and the general conduct of all those engaged in the armed conflict. In addition, IHL prohibits the use of means and methods of warfare that are of a nature to cause injury or unnecessary suffering.   IHL regulates the conduct of hostilities on the basis of three core principles: distinction, proportionality and precaution.   The principle of distinction requires that the parties to an armed conflict distinguish at all times between civilians and civilian objects on the one hand, and combatants and military objectives on the other, and that attacks may only be directed against combatants and military objectives.   The purpose of this is to protect civilians, civilian property and the civilian population as a whole. Direct attacks against civilians or civilian objects and indiscriminate attacks – that is, attacks that strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction – are prohibited.   The principle of proportionality, a corollary to the principle of distinction, dictates that, when attacking a military objective, loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, must not be excessive in relation to the military advantage anticipated. This principle requires parties to anticipate the harm that might be caused directly by an attack and the indirect (i.e. reverberating) effects.   The principle of precaution requires parties to an armed conflict to take constant care to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects in the conduct of all military operations. The principle also requires parties to a conflict to take a range of precautions in attack and a range of precautions against the effects of attacks to protect civilians and civilian objects.   With respect to precautions in attack, all feasible precautions must be taken to avoid or at least minimize civilian harm. Among others, this includes measures to verify that targets are military objectives and to give the civilian population an effective warning before the attack.   It can also entail restrictions on the location of an attack, as well as the weapons or tactics employed. At the same time, parties to an armed conflict must, to the maximum extent feasible, take necessary precautions to protect the civilian population and civilian objects against the effects of attacks. For example, it may include evacuating civilians from, or at least allowing them to leave, a besieged area where hostilities are taking place.   The rules on the conduct of hostilities also grant specific protection to objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population (including agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops or drinking water installations), and works and installations containing dangerous forces (dams, nuclear electrical generating stations..). The use of means and methods of warfare that are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment are also prohibited.   The implementation of IHL is primarily the responsibility of states. They must respect and ensure respect for these rules in all circumstances (Article 1 common to the four Geneva Conventions). States must adopt legislation and regulations aimed at ensuring full compliance with IHL.   They must enact laws to provide effective penal sanctions for the most serious violations of the Geneva Conventions – the so-called “grave breaches” – violations that amount to war crimes.   The 1998 Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) established the Court’s jurisdiction to prosecute the most serious crimes of international concern, including war crimes (Article 8). By virtue of the principle of complementarity, its jurisdiction is intended to come into play only when a state is genuinely unable or unwilling to prosecute alleged war criminals over which that state has jurisdiction.   http://www.icrc.org/en/statement/icrc-president-un-security-council-protection-civilians-armed-conflict http://www.icrc.org/en/statement/icrc-president-mirjana-spoljaric-58th-session-human-rights-council http://www.icrc.org/en/rulesofwar http://www.icrc.org/en/law-and-policy/respect-ihl http://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2025/02/06/a-call-to-make-international-humanitarian-law-a-political-priority/ http://www.icrc.org/en/global-initiative-international-humanitarian-law http://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k12/k12ajz5mw5 http://www.globalr2p.org/publications/populations-at-risk-march-2025/ Visit the related web page
	Autonomous weapons systems pose grave risks to human rights during both war and peacetime by Human Rights Watch, agencies   Apr. 2025   Autonomous weapons systems pose grave risks to human rights during both war and peacetime, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Governments should tackle the concerns raised by such weapons systems, known as “killer robots,” by negotiating a multinational treaty to address the dangers.   The 61-page report, “A Hazard to Human Rights: Autonomous Weapons Systems and Digital Decision-Making,” finds that autonomous weapons, which select and apply force to targets based on sensor rather human inputs, would contravene the rights to life, peaceful assembly, privacy, and remedy as well as the principles of human dignity and non-discrimination. Technological advances and military investments are now spurring the rapid development of autonomous weapons systems that would operate without meaningful human control.   “The use of autonomous weapons systems will not be limited to war, but will extend to law enforcement operations, border control, and other circumstances, raising serious concerns under international human rights law,” said Bonnie Docherty, senior arms adviser at Human Rights Watch, lecturer on law at Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, and lead author of the report. “To avoid a future of automated killing, governments should seize every opportunity to work toward the goal of adopting a global treaty on autonomous weapons systems.”   The report, co-published with Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, was issued ahead of the first United Nations General Assembly meeting on autonomous weapons systems in New York on May 12 to 13, 2025.   Weapons systems with varying degrees of autonomy have existed for years, but the types of targets, duration of operation, geographical scope, and environment in which they operate have been limited. They include missile defense systems, armed drones, and loitering munitions.   Autonomous weapons systems operating without meaningful human control would, once activated, rely on software, often using algorithms, input from sensors like cameras, radar signatures, and heat shapes, and other data, to identify a target. After finding a target, they would fire or release their payload without the need for approval or review by a human operator. That means a machine rather than a human would determine where, when, and against what force is applied.   Autonomous weapons systems would lack the ability to interpret complex situations and to accurately approximate human judgment and emotion, elements that are essential to lawfully using force under the rights to life and peaceful assembly.   Contrary to fundamental human rights principles, the weapons systems would be incapable of valuing human life in a way that is required to respect an individual’s dignity. In addition, systems relying on artificial intelligence would most likely be discriminatory due to developers’ biases and the inherent lack of transparency of machine learning.   Autonomous weapons systems would also violate human rights throughout their life cycle, not just at the time of use. The mass surveillance necessary for their development and training would undermine the right to privacy. The accountability gap of these black-box systems would infringe upon the right to a remedy for harm after an attack.   “Human beings, whether soldiers or police officers, often egregiously violate human rights, but it would be worse to replace them with machines,” Docherty said. “While people have the ability to uphold human rights, machines do not have the capacity to comply or to understand the consequences of their actions.”   Christof Heyns, the late UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, was the first UN official to raise the alarm about autonomous weapons systems in his 2013 report to the UN Human Rights Council. “A Hazard to Human Rights” charts how the UN secretary-general and numerous UN bodies and experts have stressed that the use of autonomous weapons systems would pose threats to international human rights law, and some have argued they should be prohibited.   More than 120 countries are now on record calling for the adoption of a new international treaty on autonomous weapons systems. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, have urged states to “act now to preserve human control over the use of force” by negotiating by 2026 a legally binding instrument with prohibitions and regulations for autonomous weapons systems.   Most treaty proponents have called for prohibitions on autonomous weapons systems that by their nature operate without meaningful human control or systems that target people, as well as for regulations that ensure all other autonomous weapons systems cannot be used without meaningful human control.   The upcoming UN meeting was mandated by a UN General Assembly resolution on lethal autonomous weapons systems that was adopted on December 2, 2024, by a vote of 166 in favor, 3 opposed (Belarus, North Korea, and Russia), and 15 abstentions.   Countries have discussed lethal autonomous weapons systems at the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) meetings in Geneva since May 2014, but with no substantive outcome. The main reason for the lack of progress under the CCW is that its member countries rely on a consensus approach to decision-making, which means a single country can reject a proposal, even if every other country agrees to it. A handful of major military powers investing in autonomous weapons systems have exploited this process to repeatedly block proposals to negotiate a legally binding instrument.   “Negotiations for a treaty on autonomous weapons systems should take place in a forum characterized by a common purpose, voting-based decision-making, clear and ambitious deadlines, and a commitment to inclusivity,” Docherty said.   * Human Rights Watch is a cofounder of Stop Killer Robots, which calls for a new international treaty to prohibit and regulate autonomous weapons systems. The coalition of more than 270 nongovernmental organizations in 70 countries supports the development of legal and other norms that ensure meaningful human control over the use of force, counter digital dehumanization, and reduce automated harm.   http://www.hrw.org/news/2025/04/28/killer-robots-threaten-human-rights-during-war-peace http://www.hrw.org/news/2025/05/21/un-start-talks-treaty-ban-killer-robots http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/ http://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2025-05-12/secretary-generals-video-message-the-informal-consultations-lethal-autonomous-weapons-systems http://www.icrc.org/en/statement/preserving-human-control-over-use-force-call-regulate-lethal-autonomous-weapon-systems http://futureoflife.org/project/autonomous-weapons-systems/ http://www.passblue.com/2025/05/14/can-a-treaty-controlling-killer-robots-soon-see-the-light-of-day-experts-hope-so/ Visit the related web page
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