UNITED NATIONS, Sep 17 (APP):Speakers at an informal UN Security Council meeting Wednesday urged the consistent, universal enforcement of international law during conflicts. They argued that the credibility of the international legal order relies on action rather than rhetoric, emphasizing that resolutions must actively protect civilians, prevent violations, and advance peaceful resolutions of conflicts. “The first casualty of war must never be international law itself,” Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad told …
Unresolved conflicts threaten UNSC credibility, speakers warn at Pakistan-Hosted Arria-Formula event
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 17 (APP):Speakers at an informal UN Security Council meeting Wednesday urged the consistent, universal enforcement of international law during conflicts.
They argued that the credibility of the international legal order relies on action rather than rhetoric, emphasizing that resolutions must actively protect civilians, prevent violations, and advance peaceful resolutions of conflicts.
“The first casualty of war must never be international law itself,” Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad told the meeting held under Arria-Formula format named after a former Venezuelan Ambassador to the UN, Diego Arriva.
The meeting, hosted by Pakistan on the theme of ‘Upholding International Law in Situations of Armed Conflict,’ was attended by a wide membership of the United Nations, including the ten elected and five permanent members of the 15-member Council.
Arria-Formula meetings are informal that enable Security Council members to have a frank and private exchange of views on relevant subjects.
Wednesday’s meeting featured briefings from representatives of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Peace Institute (IPI), and World Forum for Peace and Justice. The briefers highlighted the humanitarian consequences of non-compliance with international law and the need to strengthen civilian protection, humanitarian access, accountability and implementation of international legal obligations.
In his remarks, Ambassador Asim Ahmad underscored the need to close the persistent gap between international legal obligations and their implementation,
stressing that the true measure of the international legal order is whether its rules protect people when war begins, constrain the powerful and are applied consistently, “irrespective of geography, politics or identity.”
The Pakistani envoy described the situation in Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) as an enduring test of the authority of international law and the credibility of the UN Security Council.
Nowhere has the credibility of the international legal order been tested more painfully than in Gaza, where immense destruction, displacement, and deprivation have devastated an entire society, he said.
Gaza is a test case of whether the fundamental principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) apply equally and without exception, Ambassador Asim Ahmad said.
Demanding that Israeli occupation must end, he said that the Palestinian people must be able to live in freedom and dignity by exercising their right to self-determination.
“Likewise, the appalling situation in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) too remains an enduring test of the authority of international law and the credibility of this Council.”
He recalled that nearly eight decades ago, the Security Council, through more than a dozen resolutions, established a pathway towards a peaceful settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute through a free and impartial plebiscite under UN auspices to ascertain the will of the Kashmiri people.
“That promise remains unfulfilled while atrocities by the Indian occupation forces intensified,” Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad said, referring to concerns raised in the 2018 and 2019 reports of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), as well as communications by UN Special Procedures, regarding excessive use of force, arbitrary detentions, torture, enforced disappearances, sexual violence, impunity and restrictions on fundamental freedoms.
He also drew attention to a Joint Communication by UN Special Procedures dated 16 October 2025, which, he noted, expressed serious concern over the arrest and detention of around 2,800 individuals in the occupied territory, including journalists and human rights defenders; demolition of homes; the blocking of around 8,000 social media accounts; and incidents of hate speech, intimidation and dehumanization targeting Kashmiris and Muslims.
The Pakistan UN envoy further highlighted the consequences of India’s unilateral measures of 5 August 2019 affecting domicile, land ownership and political representation, stating that these measures had enabled illegal demographic changes alongside restrictions on political activity, freedom of expression and religious freedom.
Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad underscored the risks posed by the continued failure to resolve the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, particularly in the context of tensions between two nuclear-armed States.
“We must remember that unresolved disputes do not disappear with time; they become more dangerous when left unaddressed,” he said, adding that the May 2025 conflict had demonstrated “the grave risks of allowing a dispute between two nuclear-armed States to fester.”
He called upon the international community, particularly the Security Council, to translate its own resolutions into meaningful action towards a just and peaceful settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.
“The international community, particularly this Security Council, must translate its own resolutions into meaningful action and concrete steps towards a just and peaceful settlement of Jammu and Kashmir dispute, in accordance with the UN Charter, relevant Security Council resolutions and the aspirations of the Kashmiri people,” he stated.
Setting out broader principles for strengthening compliance with international law, Ambassador Asim Ahmad called for its application “consistently and without selectivity,” stressing that its authority rests upon universal application of the same rules and standards to all.
He urged the Security Council and the UN system to make greater use of existing monitoring, reporting and investigative mechanisms to identify serious violations of international humanitarian law, demand corrective action, ensure humanitarian access and promote accountability.
“Monitoring must become an instrument of prevention, not merely a record of tragedy,” he said, calling for early international attention to emerging patterns of forced displacement, demographic engineering, attacks on civilian infrastructure, impediments to humanitarian access and destruction of cultural and religious heritage.
The Pakistani envoy also stressed that the Security Council must consistently uphold and implement its own decisions, particularly with respect to protracted disputes and situations of foreign occupation.
“A resolution cannot be indispensable in one situation and expendable in another,” he said.
He called for greater emphasis on resolving the underlying causes of conflicts through the peaceful-settlement mechanisms provided under the UN Charter, including negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement and the Secretary-General’s good offices.
“The credibility of international law will not be determined by how eloquently we defend it when doing so is politically convenient,” he said. “There can be no hierarchy of victims, no geography of compassion, and no selective legality.”
“The law will be judged not by the promises written in its texts, but by the lives it protects, the injustices it prevents, and the peace it makes possible,” he added.
The four briefers underscored that the central challenge facing the international legal order is not a lack of legal frameworks, but the persistent gap between international obligations and their implementation in situations of armed conflict.
Aurelien Buffler, Head of the Humanitarian Policy and Planning Section at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, (OCHA) highlighted the consequences of choices to disregard international humanitarian law, impede humanitarian access and use weapons despite risks to civilians, while noting the growing use of armed drones and emerging technologies such as AI in warfare and the need to ensure their lawful use.
Elyse Mosquini, Permanent Observer and Head of Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross to the United Nations, stressed that civilians bear the greatest costs of war and called for stronger political will, restraint by armed forces, and consistent implementation of international humanitarian law by States and the Security Council.
Dr. Jenna Russo, Director of Research and Head of the Brian Urquhart Center for Peace Operations at the International Peace Institute (IPI), emphasized that violations must carry meaningful consequences to strengthen deterrence, calling for civilian protection to be prioritized across all conflicts and for greater accountability despite political constraints.
Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Chairman of the World Forum for Peace and Justice, similarly stressed that the credibility of the UN depends on implementing its resolutions rather than merely adopting them, underscoring that international law cannot be universal in its language while selective in its application. He highlighted the situation in Kashmir as an example of the consequences of unresolved disputes and inadequate implementation of international norms.
Representatives of United Kingdom, France, Russian Federation, China, Panama, United States, Denmark, Greece, Somalia, Bahrain, Columbia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Latvia, Liberia, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, Spain, Oman, Cyprus, Malaysia, Thailand, Kuwait, Bulgaria, Liechtenstein, Nepal, Brazil, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Japan, Palestine, Austria, European Union, and Turkiye expressed their views during the meeting.
