YouSaid · the spoken record

Mauer

lines on the record

14

first

2019-05-23

most recent

2019-05-23

sittings or episodes

1

sources

un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

1. “States should promote a do-no-harm approach, backed by accountability mechanisms, for the responsible use of technologies and data. Twenty years after the International Committee of the Red Cross first addressed the protection of civilians in the Council (see S/PV.3977), violations and abuses continue. Let us work together to respond on these three levels: individual, community and the wider context. As we mark the seventieth anniversary of the Geneva Conventions this year, we urge States to recall their spirit, which is to uphold human dignity in the midst of armed conflict.”

   2019-05-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8534 (2019) · source

2. “The ICRC this year will release updated guidelines on international humanitarian law and the natural environment. We will be engaging with militaries about these guidelines, and with parties to the conflict to ensure practical measures are taken that protect the natural environment. We are also seeing gaping protection risks and vulnerabilities in the digital environment. People may face hate crimes, violence, discrimination, digital surveillance and profiling because of their online presence and/or use of digital technologies, including by Governments, the private sector and other non-State actors. In conflict zones, this can be lethal. Data collected on affected people, including through humanitarian operations, must not become a source of additional risk for populations or humanitarian organizations.”

   2019-05-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8534 (2019) · source

3. “In densely populated areas, the wide-area impact of heavy explosive weapons is now well known and their use against targets that are smaller than their area effects is all too often ethically and maybe even often legally indefensible. The price is too high to be justified; beyond the deaths and injuries of civilians, we see damaged infrastructure leading to the collapse of essential health and water systems and more. It is not only civilian infrastructure that is harmed; the environmental consequences of conflict are often overlooked. International humanitarian law protects the natural environment as a civilian object. This includes vital natural resources that, if damaged, can have implications not only for the survival of the civilian populations, but also for environmental risks.”

   2019-05-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8534 (2019) · source

4. “Additionally, the ICRC is broadening its assistance to create stronger communities through micro-economic projects aimed at reducing exposure to risk, distributing seeds that can be grown in towns to avoid women being assaulted while going to the field, or providing income-generating activities to reduce harmful behaviour such as sending children out to work. Protections in fragile settings will also require broader investments that go beyond the work of humanitarian actors, such as the restoration of markets and enabling sustainable economic activities. In the wider context of protection, with increasingly urbanized warfare, it has become starkly evident that the effects of bombing and shelling in cities are almost never limited to military targets.”

   2019-05-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8534 (2019) · source

5. “Communities need space to protect themselves and States must be more proactive in granting it. The ICRC is looking to build on our role of neutral intermediary to support these activities, for example in supporting communities to self-advocate to authorities or weapon bearers in order to ensure their safety as they go about their daily lives, collecting food and water, seeking medical help, attending schools and more. The ICRC also organizes information sessions for families on their legal rights so they can themselves approach authorities.”

   2019-05-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8534 (2019) · source

6. “Families have a right to know the fate of their loved ones and States must take steps to prevent people from going missing in the first place, for instance by registering detainees and notifying their families. The ICRC and the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement overall stand ready to support States in these efforts. The ICRC has made specific efforts to ensure that community-based protection approaches are integrated more systematically into its response. This is part of our commitment to being accountable to affected populations. Importantly, these activities can never be considered a substitute for the protection responsibilities of authorities, and States must put measures in place to protect their population, in line with their obligations under the law.”

   2019-05-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8534 (2019) · source

7. “When an individual faces immediate threats to safety and dignity, harm can be greatly reduced through strict adherence to the rules regulating the use of force, through more stringent arms controls and through humane treatment in transfers of detainees and in detention. We cannot gloss over the issue of missing people. Hundreds ofthousands ofpeople - ifnot millions - are missing worldwide. Their family members suffer deep losses and unanswered questions, their pain only deepening with time. Such festering wounds can harm the fabric of whole societies, undermining relations between groups and nations, sometimes decades after the original events. For the sake of individuals, and whole communities, the humanitarian imperative is clear.”

   2019-05-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8534 (2019) · source

8. “Connectivity has strengthened the possibilities for self-protection measures and we all need to adapt to these new developments. While we ask more of the members of the security Council and the international community at large, we ask at the very least that they do not hinder people in need in their effort to protect themselves. Too often, we see that in addition to being exposed to war and violence, populations are stopped from reaching safer spaces, constrained by bureaucratic obstacles and limited in their free movement. In putting people at the centre, we can see that protective layers must be built across three interconnected spheres in which proactive policies and practices of protection are needed; these are the individual, community and contextual levels.”

   2019-05-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8534 (2019) · source

9. “Measures must be taken that protect civilians not only from physical harm but also from invisible, psychological harm; from abuses like sexual violence or torture in detention; or from not knowing the fate of missing loved ones. We must also move beyond a victim mind-set to understanding people and communities as agents of their own protection and experts of their own situations. They have individual needs, but they also have individual skills, capacities and enormous resilience. They do not wait for external interventions to address the problems and threats they face. They decide how best to travel in groups and to ensure that children, older people and people with disabilities are not left behind during flight, choosing in advance which road to take, discussing locations to avoid and negotiating directly with weapons-bearers.”

   2019-05-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8534 (2019) · source

10. “Humanitarian action is adapting to people's changing needs, and we call on States to adapt, too, by prioritizing the protection of civilians; by upholding international humanitarian law and influencing their partners to do so; by setting clearer frameworks for their troops and for those supported; by setting clearer ground rules; by vetting, training and instructing partners; by applying the highest standards of precaution in weapons transfers; and by setting up clear oversight and accountability frameworks. Through these measures, the Council can influence behaviour and protect populations exposed to war and violence. This debate must be anchored in the experiences and needs of people and communities who suffer the daily brutalities of war and violence.”

    2019-05-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8534 (2019) · source

11. “Seventy years after the universal ratification of the Geneva Conventions; more than 40 years after the adoption of the Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions; and 20 years after the Security Council held its first protection of civilians debate, we are still seeing outrageous violations on a daily basis. While we understand that political consensus is difficult, we ask the Council to be clearer in its support for respect for international humanitarian law and in stating and following through on the simple truth that no one is above the law and no civilian can be excluded from protection. Today, in the face of changing conflict dynamics, international humanitarian law and international human rights law continue to be the bedrock.”

    2019-05-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8534 (2019) · source

12. “These decisions can save lives or end them; they can create hope or misery; and they can bolster or break the norms that protect universal humanitarian laws and principles - whether a city is bombed to rubble or whether civilians and hospitals are spared; whether children are sent to school or recruited into armed groups; whether prisoners are tortured or treated with decency; whether families ever hear from their loved ones again. Not only are the decisions of all United Nations Member States and especially those of the Security Council important; the absence of decisions by the Council also takes its toll on civilians. On battlefields, where the ICRC is present today, too many actors take the absence of political convergence among Council members as a free ride for military operations without any limitations and without accountability.”

    2019-05-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8534 (2019) · source

13. “Twenty years ago, the Security Council invited the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to briefit on the protection of civilians (see S/PV.3977) and adopted a presidential statement that further welcomed its contribution to this issue (see S/PRST/l999/6). The past two decades have shown us how the political and military decisions made in this Chamber impact the human conditions on battlefields around the world.”

    2019-05-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8534 (2019) · source

14. “Mr. Mauer: We thank Indonesia for its stewardship of this debate and we note with appreciation its continued support in hosting an important regional conference for armed forces in Jakarta in a few weeks from today. We trust the conference will follow the debate here and lead to further efforts to strengthen the protection of civilians through better peacekeeping. Madam President, we appreciate your country's and your personal commitment to this issue, in particular your focus on a strengthened role for women in peacekeeping. I also thank the Secretary-General for his strong leadership in highlighting the critical protection gaps with which we are confronted today.”

    2019-05-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8534 (2019) · source