Mr. President,
Dear colleagues,

While we are meeting here, war and armed conflicts are raging in many parts of the world. In each and every case, civilians are bearing the brunt, losing their homes, their livelihood or even their life. To minimize these terrible effects of armed conflict, adherence to humanitarian principles and, above all, respect for International Humanitarian Law is paramount.

Germany very much welcomes this timely interactive dialogue as an opportunity to re-affirm our collective commitment to International Humanitarian Law and principled humanitarian ac-tion. We are particularly grateful to you, Madam President, for giving prominence to the “Global Initiative to galvanize political commitment to international humanitarian law”, launched by the ICRC. I am pleased to announce that Germany will join this initiative and actively contribute to its implementation. We fully support its goal of making IHL a political priority, as a guiding framework to reduce suffering and help steer armed conflicts toward peaceful resolution. Better respect for IHL cannot be achieved without strong political com-mitment.

The initiative aligns with the objectives of the Call for Action that Germany and France had jointly launched already in 2019 and which more than fifty states have joined since then. The concrete and substantial steps to promote adherence to IHL as they are outlined in the Call for Action are as relevant as ever and the ICRC’s initiative builds an important and very welcome framework to foster their implementation.

But also new challenges for upholding IHL arise constantly, not least through technological de-velopments. It is important to ensure full respect of IHL also in new fields such as information and communication technology used both by states as well as non-state actors. Germany wel-comes the adoption of a respective resolution at the recent International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

In closing, Germany reiterates its appreciation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement for its essential and principled humanitarian assistance, but also for its engagement for the re-spect for IHL as an indispensable precondition for enabling humanitarian assistance in conflict situations.

Thank you!