Mr President,
In conflicts all over the world, we are repeatedly faced with double tragedies. Men, women and children, driven from their homes, are also targets of inhuman treatment, brutal attacks and sometimes even massacres.
Recent internal conflicts pose new challenges to the international community:
Victims of conflict are denied urgently needed emergency relief, forced to walk hundreds of miles in search of safety and left to die in remote wilderness.
And those who are there to help are refused access to the refugees and are even themselves increasingly made targets of such violence.
Large scale attacks on human security and gross violations of human rights within states are the harbinger of threats to regional and international security.
Thus, the Security Council is frequently called upon to address important questions on how to protect refugees and humanitarian assistance to refugees and others in conflict situations. Sweden welcomes this debate. It should be a step towards concrete proposals and decisions by the Council in this field.
Governments bear the primary responsibility for the security of all individuals under their jurisdiction. This responsibility also entails that Governments should seek international support if they lack the ability to provide such protection and assistance.
But individual perpetrators must always be held accountable for violations of humanitarian law, also in areas where government authority has broken down.
The role of the Security Council is first and foremost to promote political solutions to crises, preferably even before a conflict has turned violent. Peaceful conflict resolution or preventive diplomacy are certainly the best methods of addressing the fundamental problems of refugees and displaced persons.
Action to be considered by the Security Council in this field is, however, manifold. The Council has an essential role in ensuring respect for international humanitarian law and human rights. Actions of the Council, in each individual case, also contribute to the development of norms for the behaviour of states, and even non-state entities.
Protection of humanitarian assistance is, and should be, a task specifically mandated in connection with many peace-keeping operations. But even in the absence of UN peace-keeping, the Security Council must ensure that it is fully appraised of the humanitarian and human rights situation at hand and of the requirements of humanitarian organizations.
Therefore, the Council should consult closely on a regular basis with humanitarian organizations and seek their advice on how to improve the security of refugees, displaced persons and the humanitarian relief workers themselves.
From the outset of a crisis, the Council should use its moral authority and political leverage to impress on leaders of parties in conflict their personal accountability for crimes against refugees and displaced persons as well as humanitarian personnel, in areas under their control. The need for humanitarian access should be equally underlined.
Impunity should not be accepted. The Council should consider ways and means to follow up on such crimes. Preferably, political actors should know from the outset what kind of consequences they will have to face if they take part in crimes against international humanitarian law, or refrain from bringing the perpetrators to justice.
An International Criminal Court could be a helpful instrument in this regard. International civilian police could be deployed in crisis to monitor the situation, to help investigate crimes and to assist in the building of national structures of justice.
Crises are invariably different in nature. The protection of refugees and displaced persons may require different kinds of arrangements. For example, a clear distinction should be made between protection measures in an enforcement situation under chapter VII of the Charter and measures in the context of other UN operations. Early consultations between the Council and relief agencies could help define the proper response.
The UNHCR has a unique international mandate to protect refugees and others in refugee-like situations. The complex conditions in refugee hosting as well as returnee receiving areas call for a comprehensive, situation-specific protection strategy. Sweden welcomes the close cooperation between UNHCR and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and hope that useful lessons will be drawn by the two agencies from their experience in the Great Lakes region.
The High Commissioner for Refugees has called for a Rapid Deployment Force to assist, inter alia, in separating military groups from bona fide refugees in mass displacement situations. There is good reason to reflect upon this and other ways of achieving such a separation.
Protection of humanitarian action cannot be isolated from protection of people in need. Protecting humanitarian assets and relief workers may be essential for humanitarian operations to continue. But protection mechanisms must also as their primary objective deal with shielding civilians from threats to life and livelihood.
Assault on defenceless women and children has been used as a weapon to demonstrate power and control and to disintegrate social structures and communities. Protection of refugees must include special measures to ensure the safety of women and children.
Humanitarian corridors, safe areas, protected zones or any other form of humanitarian space can in some situations provide protection. The UN should assess experiences so far of such mechanisms and the means to protect them.
The role of UN-troops, civilian police or guards in the protection of refugees and displaced persons should also be further explored.
Humanitarian action must always be based on need and on the principle of impartiality. Its integrity must be respected.
However, we cannot expect humanitarian action to be a substitute for political resolve to deal with the conflicts themselves and their root causes. It is increasingly recognized that complex man-made crises require an international response, combining political, military, humanitarian and other civilian action, that will create the conditions for peace, while protecting victims of armed conflict.
The Security Council must shoulder its responsibilities in this regard.
Thank you, Mr. President