We would not be where we are today without the leadership of France, and its strong commitment to launching this exceptional global effort to uphold the rules of war.
I welcome to you all and thank you for being present. This is the first time that we have the six founding states — France, Brazil, China, Jordan, Kazakhstan, and South Africa — together with the work-stream co-chairs all in the same room to discuss the status of the initiative and the next steps.
This Global IHL Initiative was founded out of the recognition that we face a risk of historical magnitude if we do not reverse the current trajectory of how wars are being fought.
If we do not change course, we could collectively stumble into a future where the barriers designed to limit the brutality of armed conflict are totally dismantled.
Lawlessness—the so-called state of nature—is a purely theoretical baseline and not a viable form of human coexistence. State leaders commit to respecting universally binding rules because they help them protect and advance their own country and their own people.
Yet, in the year 2025, our teams on the ground are confronting unprecedented security challenges—we have never lost more colleagues—while trying to respond to massive humanitarian fallouts that, in my opinion, could have been prevented if there were genuine political will.
Anyone operating in today’s most brutal warzones will agree: tolerating and continuing to tolerate a “no rules apply” mindset is counterintuitive because what we see is that it ultimately opens the door to auto-destruction.
As the head of a neutral and impartial humanitarian organisation working across frontlines, I find it extremely difficult to witness entire populations trapped in a self-defeating prisoner’s dilemma that the world sought to overcome when it adopted the UN Charter.
By taking part in the Global IHL Initiative, you are taking a stand against wars without rules, and for preserving humanity at all times.
I am most of all pleased to share that since the interactive dialogue convened by the president of the UN General Assembly at the end of January, significant progress has been made in getting the initiative off the ground.
I personally want to welcome and thank the states who came forward to co-chair the seven work-streams.
Your support in the development of relevant content is critical. But equally important is your help in convening more states around each work-stream to build the momentum without which we will not see real progress on the ground.
The Global IHL Initiative has to be both substance-driven and politically relevant. Your commitment to bringing together states and subject matter experts around these key topics will allow us to have concrete and practical recommendations on how to improve respect for IHL—and it is possible, if we all work together and are determined to make progress.
As of now, 66 states have formally joined the initiative. We have never invited states to give us a formal confirmation of their adherence so it’s not something you have to set in stone. It’s not the absolute number because there are many more participants already to the initiative.
Each work-stream will have one consultation between now and May. We just hosted one on the protection of civilian infrastructure which brought together 140 participants representing 79 states.
The other six consultations will take place during the month of May and they will be hybrid so that as many participants as possible to join. Around 130 participants from over 70 countries have registered so far, and I trust there will be many more. The momentum is building.
In addition, nine supporting events are taking place on all continents between April and July. They include expert panels, roundtables, and regional gatherings. All their deliberations will feed into the work-streams outcomes.
The current plan is to present and share the findings from the first round of consultations at the high-level segment of the General Assembly this September. It will be an important milestone event as it marks the half-way point in a two-year process leading to a global conference at the end of 2026.
Another key milestone is the upcoming launch of the high-level Advisory Board, which I am convening to help steer the initiative towards that Global Meeting in 2026. The Advisory Board will in essence form a representative group of independent individuals with extensive experience and strong networks in various fields—not only IHL.
Contrary to the work-streams, the Advisory Board members will not be composed of state representatives, but of senior leaders and professionals acting in their own personal capacity.
The Board’s composition will be manageable in size while ensuring the broadest possible representation in terms of profile, sector, political exposure, and geographical background. Its role will be to provide advice and accompany the establishment of the key overarching parameters of the initiative’s objectives.
More explicitly, the Board will advise on the strategy to galvanize political commitment of states to IHL. I will also keep the Board informed of the progress of the consultations on the thematic workstreams so they can advise on the consolidation of results into practical pathways towards respect for IHL.
The Advisory Board is currently coming together to be formally launched in early July. I am not yet in a position to publish the full list because I am still contacting potential Board members, but I want to seize the opportunity to bring two designated members into today’s discussion.
I am very pleased and honored to welcome with us today Christoph Heusgen, who joins the Board after several years leading the Munich Security Conference and who is a former colleague of many of you having had decades of experience as a senior German diplomat and also as Germany’s representative to the UN Security Council.
Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva is a former colleague of mine. He is currently the global director for poverty and equity at the World Bank, with three decades of experience in international economics in various organisations and in leading positions.
This is not an abstract exercise. Many of you came here today from the open debate on the Middle East, and from here, you will continue to another conversation about Ukraine. These discussions highlight the urgent need for the Global IHL Initiative.
I want to again thank the six states that have launched this initiative. I thank them for their leadership. I thank France for convening this meeting. I thank the Minister and I thank all of you for taking the co-leads of the workstreams. We will form a very important group that will hopefully lead to an outcome at the end of 2026 that will allow us all to say, “We see a reversing of the tide.”
Thank you.
We acknowledge Source link for the information.
