"Remarks by Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Permanent Representative of Pakistan, At the Arria Formula Meeting on Upholding International Law in Situations of Armed Conflict(16 September 2026)******Excellencies,Distinguished Briefers, and Colleagues,The first casualty of war must never be international law itself. Yet, too often and unfortunately, when conflict begins, the rules designed to restrain violence are the first to be disregarded.2. Pakistan convened this meeting around a simple proposition: international law must matter most and be uphold in situations of armed conflict. The true measure of an international legal order is not how many treaties we negotiate, resolutions we adopt, or principles we proclaim; it is whether those rules protect people when war begins; whether they constrain the powerful; and whether they are applied consistently irrespective of geography, politics or identity.3. The critical protections provided by international law including IHL are tested every day when civilians come under attack. No situation of armed conflict is identical, but all reveal a common failure: obligations accepted in peace are too often abandoned in war. The problem is not an absence of law; it is the absence of compliance.4. 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. Gaza is a test of whether the fundamental principles of IHL apply equally and without exception. Ultimately, occupation must end. The Palestinian people must be able to live in freedom and dignity, exercise their right to self-determination, and realize an independent and sovereign State on pre-1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.5. 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. Nearly eight decades ago, the Security Council, through more than a dozen resolutions established a pathway towards a peaceful settlement, through a free and impartial plebiscite to be held under the UN in Jammu and Kashmir to ascertain the will of its people.6. That promise remains unfulfilled while atrocities by the Indian occupation forces intensified. The 2018 and 2019 OHCHR reports, together with several communications by UN Special Procedures, have raised serious concerns over excessive use of force, arbitrary detentions, widespread torture, enforced disappearances, sexual violence, impunity, and restrictions on fundamental freedoms. For instance, in one of the Joint Communication of UN Special Procedures of 16 October 2025, they have expressed serious concern at arrest and detention of around 2,800 individuals in the occupied territory, including journalists and human rights defenders; demolition of homes; blocking of around 8,000 social media accounts; and 64 recorded incidents of hate speech, intimidation and dehumanization targeting Kashmiris and Muslims just between a short period from 22 April and 2 May 2025. In addition, Indias illegal and unilateral measures of 5 August 2019 affecting domicile, land ownership and political representation have enabled illegal demographic changes, alongside restrictions on political activity, expression and religious freedom.7. We must remember that unresolved disputes do not disappear with time; they become more dangerous when left unaddressed. Indian aggression against Pakistan and the resultant 4 day conflict in May 2025 demonstrated the grave risks of allowing a dispute between two nuclear-armed States to fester. 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.Excellencies,8. Allow me to offer five propositions for translating our legal commitments into action.First, international law must be upheld consistently and without selectivity. The authority of international law rests upon its universal application: the same rules and the same standards for everyone.Second, respect for International Humanitarian Law must be translated into verifiable compliance. The Security Council and the UN system must use existing monitoring, reporting and investigative tools to identify serious IHL violations early, demand corrective action, ensure humanitarian access and pursue accountability for violations.Third, monitoring must become an instrument of prevention, not merely a record of tragedy. The UN should identify emerging patterns of forced displacement, demographic engineering, attacks on civilian infrastructure, impediments to humanitarian access and destruction of cultural and religious heritage and generate early international attention.Fourth, the Security Council must uphold and implement its own decisions consistently. A resolution cannot be indispensable in one situation and expendable in another. The Council should periodically review implementation of outstanding conflict-specific resolutions, particularly those concerning protracted disputes and situations of foreign occupation.Finally, we must move from managing conflicts to resolving their underlying causes. The Charter already gives us the tools negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement and the Secretary-Generals good offices. Security Council resolution 2788 reaffirmed this imperative and called for more effective use of the mechanisms for peaceful settlement under Chapter VI. We must translate that commitment into practice.Excellencies,9. The credibility of international law will not be determined by how eloquently we defend it when doing so is politically convenient. 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.I thank you."