Delegation's Statement at General Assembly: Responsibility to Protect

The full text of the statement is as follows:

Statement by
Mr. Yahya Aref
Member of the Delegation of the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations
Before the General Assembly
Agenda Item 131: The Responsibility to Protect and the Prevention of Genocide, War Crimes, Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes against Humanity
6 July 2026, New York

In the Name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful

Mr. President,

The Islamic Republic of Iran attaches great importance to the noble objective of fighting egregious crimes and bringing their perpetrators to justice.

Mr. President,

Since our last consideration of this agenda item in 2025, perpetration of, among others, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Israeli terrorist regime and the United States not only remained unabated but eventually increased in extent, intensity, and gravity in February 2026.

In the course of the American-Israeli regime’s unprovoked and premeditated war of aggression against my country in February 2026 onwards, the aggressors killed thousands of civilians including women and children; in one single instance the aggressors killed 168 schoolchildren and teachers by targeting a school in city of Minab, south of Iran, while also attacked Iranian peaceful nuclear facilities, hospitals, medical centers, libraries, and historical monuments, among others.

Despite the severity of such crimes, the international community has not been able to hold the aggressors to account; these crimes were even condoned by some. More reprehensibly, certain countries that portrayed themselves as champions of the fight against egregious crimes actively aided and assisted the aggressors in the commission of these heinous crimes. In this respect, on 25 June 2026, the NATO Secretary General referred to the “number of between 4000 and 5000 US planes taking off” from certain Western countries in support of the so-called “Epic Fury”. He added that “this was crucial and important for the US to be able to conduct that whole operation…”.

The crimes against humanity and war crimes committed against my country by the aggressors and the foregoing open admissions of complicity in the aggression, which clearly entails international responsibility, as well as the ongoing genocide in Palestine, once again demonstrates that commitment to the effective prevention and suppression of atrocious crimes does not depend on the creation of additional pseudo legal terminology nor on political slogans and mere utterances, rather, it is actualized through genuine commitment and good faith in performance of obligations free from hypocrisy, double standards, and selectivity towards administration of justice. In our view, these are the main challenges posed to the prevention of atrocious crimes.

Mr. President,

Distinguished Delegations,

All these challenges are being exacerbated as a result of attempts to devise vague nomenclature and to fragment relevant international law through notions such as the responsibility to protect. More than twenty years have passed since the 2005 World Summit, Member States have never arrived at a common ground on the notion of “responsibility to protect”, views have remained in sharp contention, and no such notion nor any consistent practice in this regard ever emerged in international law.

Regrettably, such notions not only risk diverting attention from the imperative of combating impunity for heinous crimes, for which clear obligations already exist under international law, but as developments point out, have been used as a conduit for justifying violation of the fundamental principles of international law, in particular, sovereign equality, non-intervention and prohibition of threat and use of force. These flagrant violations of international law have even amounted to the very commission of the same crimes that were meant to be countered in the first place.

Finally, in our view, the implementation of relevant applicable obligations in good faith in accordance with international law is the key to strongly counter atrocious crimes; obligations that must be upheld in the face of attempts that aim to fragment existing international law. This is a sine qua non for saving the lives of innocent people from falling victim to heinous crimes.

I thank you.