2025 ECOSOC Humanitarian Affairs Segment - High-Level Panel on “The humanitarian consequences of armed conflict: promoting respect for and good practices in the application of international humanitarian law”

Madam Vice-President,

The ongoing conflicts and protracted humanitarian crises, with their trail of devastation and suffering, present a dramatic picture of the violence affecting many of our brothers and sisters. Such atrocities are often committed under the guise of so-called military necessity or political demands.       

                The reality on the ground offers compelling evidence. It is clear that the rules and principles established by IHL are incapable of ensuring limits to the inhumanity of conflicts if they are not effectively translated into practice, or even worse, if they are violated. 

                It is extremely alarming that, despite existing legal obligations, including the distinction between military and civilian targets, all conflicts end up indiscriminately affecting the civilian population. War is a defeat for the whole of humanity.

Madam Vice-President,

In light of the 130 armed conflicts currently ongoing across the globe, and the profound humanitarian devastation that they cause, it is clear that there is not only a crisis of compliance with the rules of war, but also a crisis of conscience^[1]. 

Therefore, International Humanitarian Law should not be regarded solely as a legal framework, but as an ethical charter, rooted in the values that inspire it. Furthermore, the temptation to perceive the “other” as nothing but an enemy to be destroyed must be rejected. 

Moreover, in the current troubling context, the need for an educational process that disseminates IHL and its ethical foundation is more urgent than ever. 

The Holy See hopes that the ICRC’s initiative to galvanize political commitment to IHL will contribute decisively to the unwavering respect of its fundamental rules and principles.

Madam Vice-President,

As conflicts and divisions continue to affect the human family, it is imperative to overcome the logic of war and, and as His Holiness Pope Leo XIV affirmed, to foster “a peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering.”^[2] In order to respond to this appeal, full respect for IHL, concrete humanitarian gestures of good will such as the exchange of prisoners, the dignified return of the dead, and the protection and respect of hospitals and places of worship during armed conflicts, can certainly contribute towards facilitating mediation and reconciliation, and finally serve the cause of a just and long-lasting peace.

Thank you.