Statement on behalf of the NB8 countries by H.E. Sandra Jensen Landi, Deputy Permanent Representative of Denmark to the United Nations

Responsibility to Protect and the Prevention of Genocide, War Crimes, Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes against Humanity

25 June 2025, New York

Madam President,

I have the honor to speak on behalf of the eight Nordic-Baltic countries: Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and my own country, Denmark.

We would like to thank the Secretary-General for his statement and the 17^th annual report entitled “Responsibility to Protect: 20 years of commitment to principled and collective action”.

Twenty years ago, the community of States unanimously agreed on a shared responsibility to protect populations in danger. This agreement reflected the hard lessons learned from our catastrophic failures to prevent atrocity crimes, in particular the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and the genocide at Srebrenica in Bosnia Herzegovina. We urge the Security Council to renew and strengthen its focus on prevention.

Today, we reaffirm our commitment to protect populations from war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and ethnic cleansing. We reaffirm our shared commitment to all three pillars of the responsibility to protect. We acknowledge that much works remains to be done to properly implement the promise we made in 2005 and appreciate this meeting to discuss the current state of atrocity prevention.

The anniversary provides us with an important opportunity to reflect on the challenges surrounding the responsibility to protect and its implementation.

In our view, it is important that the report reaffirms R2P as a relevant framework for action and useful guide for meeting the responsibilities and obligations of sovereignty, including the responsibility of States to protect their populations from atrocity crimes. We must learn from past applications of R2P and work together to ensure its effective implementation going forward.

This year’s report includes many examples from the national, regional and multilateral level of how states can implement R2P. We acknowledge the important role the Joint Office on R2P and Genocide Prevention in this regard and the comprehensive work by civil society experts who have produced strategic and technical guidance on implementing R2P. Looking ahead, we reiterate our suggestion to focus on how to best implement R2P in concrete situations and a critical review of past practice in this regard.

We commend initiatives such as the establishment of national focal point for R2P to facilitate and strengthen efforts to integrate R2P into different work streams at capital level. The work of the cross-regional Group of Friends for R2P both here in New York and in Geneva has also contributed to promoting R2P and its implementation in the work of different UN organs. For us it is in this context especially important to fight against sexual and gender-based violence and to hold accountable those responsible for atrocity crimes.   Independent and impartial international courts and tribunals, in particular the ICJ and the ICC, are central to upholding international law and ensuring accountability for the most serious crimes.

In closing, we underscore the importance of the UN being able to prevent or, if necessary, respond to atrocity crimes. This is critical, as we next month mark the 30^th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. The special UN mandates on the prevention of genocide and the responsibility to protect represent lessons learnt which still matter very much today.

Thank you.