On 20 March 2024, the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and United Nations Legal Counsel, Mr. Miguel de Serpa Soares, delivered a speech at the 41st Annual International Humanitarian Law Seminar organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the New York University. The purpose of this seminar is to inform new delegates from the permanent missions of members states to the United Nations of recent developments as well as contemporary issues and challenges in the field of international humanitarian law.
On a year which marks the 75th anniversary of the 1949 Geneve Conventions and the 160th anniversary of the 1864 Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field, the Legal Counsel recalled the critical importance of the full implementation of international humanitarian law instruments and of the philosophy at their core.
The Legal Counsel then addressed one of the questions related to the intersections between the legal framework that is specifically applicable to the United Nations and the law of armed conflict itself. Recalling that the inviolability of United Nations’ premises is one of the key privileges, immunities and facilities afforded by Member States to the Organization to facilitate the implementation of its mandate, he analyzed the scope of inviolability of United Nations premises in times of armed conflict. Drawing from the practice of States in relation to the inviolability of their diplomatic premises and from the extensive practice of both the United Nations in general and the Office of Legal Affairs in particular he highlighted that inviolability of United Nations premises applies both at war and at peace and that, notwithstanding some extreme and complex cases, international humanitarian law does not displace inviolability.
