EU Statement -- UNGA81 Third Committee General Debate
Chair,
I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.
The Candidate Countries Montenegro*, Albania*, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina* , as well as Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and the United Kingdom align themselves with this statement.
Let me begin by congratulating you and the members of the Bureau on your election. You have an important task ahead in steering this Committee through a broad and important range of human rights, social, humanitarian and cultural issues. You can count on the EU’s full support.
We meet at a difficult time.
War and armed conflict are taking an unacceptable toll on civilians, often hitting the most vulnerable hardest, including through devastating consequences for global food security. And around the world, we are witnessing worrying levels of violations and pushback against human rights and attempts to reverse hard-won progress.
It may seem tempting to believe that, in challenging times like these, human rights are somehow less important than peace, security or development. That they are a luxury to be pursued only once a certain level of stability or prosperity has been achieved.
However, nothing could be further from the truth.
Respect for human rights is not the sole preserve of peaceful and prosperous societies. Rather, it is an essential condition for building them. Peace and sustainable development cannot take root where people live in fear, where fundamental rights and freedoms are violated, discrimination goes unaddressed, where institutions do not serve their people, or where those in power cannot be held accountable.
Europe’s own history has taught us this lesson at enormous cost. Our continent has known war, division, authoritarianism and grave violations of human rights. We certainly do not claim to have overcome all our challenges. But our experience has shown us that reconciliation, lasting peace and sustainable development require respect for human rights, the rule of law, democracy and institutions strong enough to protect them.
It is therefore precisely the wrong time to allow the weakening of the international human rights system painstakingly built over decades. It is the time to defend it—and make it work better.
Here in New York, the Third Committee has a particular responsibility: to address social, humanitarian and cultural issues and to promote human rights and prevent violations, and ensure that human rights remain at the heart of the work of the General Assembly.
Chair,
The EU will engage actively and constructively across all agenda items of this Committee. Protection of human rights, gender equality, social development, fighting racism, crime prevention and criminal justice–all go hand in hand to achieve the same shared goal: a better life for all.
Our commitment is to all human rights—civil, political, economic, social and cultural. This includes the right to development, as reflected in the 1986 Declaration. Forty years after its adoption, the EU continues to translate that commitment into practice through our leading political, operational, and financial support for the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda.
Our own history has taught us another difficult lesson: there can be no lasting peace without justice and accountability. We therefore reaffirm our unwavering support for the international criminal justice system, particularly the International Criminal Court, and reject attempts to undermine its independence and integrity. The Human Rights Council, with its special procedures and mandated investigations, also has an important role in this regard.
The core message of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is very clear: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. Discrimination is not rooted in nature, it is created and perpetuated by laws, policies, practices and social norms. We have the power to eliminate it. We will continue to combat all forms of discrimination, hatred and violence—whether based on the colour of your skin, how you worship, who you love, or who you are– this includes on grounds of sex, race, ethnic or social origin, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, disability, age, sexual orientation and gender identity.
At a time of growing backlash against the rights of women and girls, we remain firmly committed to advancing gender equality, the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights by all women and girls, and their empowerment, in line with the global commitments we have all made. Equality in law is not enough; we need to take a transformative approach to actively address and dismantle the structural barriers and underlying root causes of gender inequalities and take proactive measures to achieve substantive equality for all. We remain committed to the promotion, protection and fulfilment of all human rights and to the full and effective implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the outcomes of their review conferences and remains committed to sexual and reproductive health and rights, in this context. Equal rights, opportunities and dignity for women and girls benefit our societies as a whole. This is what the gender equality agenda is about—it is an agenda that unites us, and we will continue to defend this unity and reject forces that try to divide and polarise us. The EU also recalls its commitment to support women’s and youth’s equal, full, effective and meaningful participation, in all their diversity, in all spheres of public and political life, recognising their essential role in building inclusive, peaceful and resilient societies.
The EU will continue to promote the rights of Indigenous Peoples, as set out in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and international human rights law. For those rights to be meaningful, Indigenous Peoples must have a real voice in the decisions and processes that affect them. We will therefore continue to engage in all efforts to enhance their full, effective and meaningful participation in all relevant UN meetings on issues affecting them, in accordance with the principle of free, prior and informed consent.
We call on all States to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of all persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities. The EU will promote their right to participate effectively in cultural, religious, social, economic and public life.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The EU will continue to promote the full, equal and meaningful participation of persons with disabilities in political and public life and support disability-inclusive approaches.
We also must defend a safe and enabling space for civil society. We may not always agree with what civil society, journalists or human rights defenders have to say about our governments and our policies. But open debate, peaceful dissent and scrutiny are not threats to democratic societies. Instead, they help them thrive. That is why we are deeply concerned about the continuous attack on civil society and growing restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly and association and condemn in the strongest terms any intimidation, criminalization or reprisals against human rights defenders.
We must also ensure that digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, are developed and used in ways that are human-centric and never undermine human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Chair,
Inevitably, our deliberation in this Committee will be impacted by the challenges and horrors of the world around us, and it is our responsibility to address those.
For more than four years, Russia has continued its illegal, unprovoked and unjustified full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine, in blatant violation of international law, including the UN Charter. The human cost continues to grow. UN human rights monitors have documented sharply rising civilian casualties and systematic and deliberate Russian attacks on Ukraine’s civilian, cultural and energy infrastructure, alongside widespread and systematic torture, ill-treatment, and summary executions of Ukrainian civilian detainees, and the unlawful deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children. We condemn in the strongest possible terms these atrocities and call on Russia to immediately end these violations and comply with its obligations under international law including ensuring the immediate, safe and unconditional return of all unlawfully deported Ukrainian children. Russia, and its leadership, must be held accountable for all international crimes and human rights violations and abuses committed in the context of its war of aggression. In this context, we urge the Belarusian authorities to stop their involvement in Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, and to halt the instrumentalization of migrants for political purposes.
We have become accustomed to Russia using the Third Committee to try to justify its aggression and to downplay its catastrophic impact. We ask other delegations to take note of this pattern and to reject this politicization of our work. The EU condemns the structural system of human rights violations in Russia, which are part of a further intensifying systematic, state-sponsored internal repression.
We condemn all violations of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and remain gravely concerned by the devastating humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We urge the Government of Israel to abide by its obligations under international law and immediately remove all restrictions to access and allow sustained distribution of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza. We call for the permanent disarmament of Hamas and other non-state armed groups and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the deployment of the temporary International Stabilisation Force, as outlined in the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict. Hamas cannot be part of any solution in Gaza. We regret the lack of progress in the implementation of the ceasefire and all other provisions of UN Security Council resolution 2803 and reiterate our call on all actors to implement them, in accordance with international law. We condemn the continued and growing settler violence in the West Bank and Israel’s unilateral actions aiming to expand its presence in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which the International Court of Justice has declared to be unlawful, and which undermine the prospects for a two-state solution.
We remain deeply concerned by deteriorating human rights situations in many countries across the world, whether driven by war and armed conflict, democratic backsliding or growing authoritarian tendencies. In this regard, we refer to the recent EU statements under Item 4 of the Human Rights Council addressing situations that require the Council’s attention, including Russia, Belarus, Israel and OPT, Iran, China, including in Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Hong Kong, Sudan, Türkiye as well as Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
Chair,
This session, the EU will present the following resolutions.
Together with the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, we will again present the resolution on the human rights situation of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar. Nine years after the military operations that led to the mass exodus of Rohingya, and more than five years after the military coup, the Rohingya and the people of Myanmar have suffered too much and for far too long. We must continue to shine a spotlight on this unacceptable situation.
We will also present the resolution on the human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations in one of the world’s most closed societies require sustained international attention. We strongly condemn the DPRK’s support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and urge it to immediately cease any direct or indirect assistance to Russia in its war.
All EU Member States are also members in the Inter-Regional Task Force presenting the biennial resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty. This remains an important priority. Reported executions rose sharply in 2025, driven largely by a small number of countries. Yet, the broader global direction remains clear: some 170 countries have now abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty either in law or in practice. That is remarkable progress since the General Assembly adopted its first moratorium resolution in 2007.
EU Member States will also present resolutions on important issues , including violence against women and girls, extrajudicial executions, the right to privacy, and preventing and combatting trafficking in human organs.
Chair,
Defending the human rights system also means being willing to reform it.
Through the UN80 Initiative, we are collectively considering how this Organization can become more effective, efficient and focused on delivering results. The EU strongly supports these effort. The severe liquidity crisis the UN is facing makes those efforts necessary. However, reform must strengthen, not weaken, the human rights pillar. It must safeguard the integrity, independence, normative role and operational capacity of the UN human rights architecture, including through adequate, predictable and sustainable funding.
The EU is ready to do its part. Almost all resolutions presented by the EU and its Member States in this Committee are already biennial or triennial and we are ready to consider further steps. In this spirit, we have decided to not present our annual resolution on Freedom of Religion or Belief this year. This procedural decision does not diminish the EU’s commitment, nor the continued validity and importance of the resolution.
However, reform and efficiency efforts must be a shared responsibility, undertaken collectively and on an equitable basis. It cannot depend on restraint by some delegations while others continue as if business as usual.
We therefore encourage you and the Bureau to play an active role in helping all delegations deliver on this shared commitment so that we can devote more time to what matters most: implementation and impact of our resolutions on the lives of people. The interactive dialogues with Special Procedures and other mandate holders offer precisely such an opportunity. They allow us to listen, exchange best practices, learn from experience and consider what needs to change on the ground.
Chair,
The international human rights system is not perfect. Neither are any of our countries. Human rights are not something that some States have achieved and others have yet to learn. They are shared commitments we have all made that we must keep.
Thank you.