Today marks the start of Protection of Civilians Week, bringing together Member States, UN agencies, and civil society to reflect on key challenges and advance solutions to strengthen the protection of civilians in armed conflict. The initiative takes place alongside the annual UN Security Council Open Debate on Protection of Civilians on 20 May and the release of the Secretary-General’s 2026 report on the protection of civilians.
Amid a global protection crisis exacerbated by sweeping humanitarian funding cuts, twenty civil society organisations, including the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights, have released a joint statement ahead of the Open Debate. The statement calls out the failure of some UN member states to uphold their legal obligations to protect, and not to target, civilians in armed conflict, as well as the failure of the Security Council and other UN bodies to adequately respond to persistent and blatant violations of international humanitarian law, including by holding perpetrators to account.
Yet, as protection needs rise and institutional capacity contracts, civilian and community-led action to protect one another, monitor conflict and respond to harm has never stopped. People living through war have continued to develop and deploy a wide range of protective strategies, from grassroots early warning and response to civilian harm documentation to direct engagement with armed actors to strengthen protection outcomes. Ceasefire is co-hosting a side event (in-person and online), turning the lens toward these efforts and the people behind them, and exploring how the UN and Member States can support them.
Event details:
Centring civilian agency and community-led protection in an era of constraints, austerity and impunity
Wednesday, 20 May 2026, 8:30 – 10am EDT
Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the UN in New York
and online via Zoom
Register here.
Photo: Helmet and flack jackets of the members of the 1 parachute battalion of the South African contingent of the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC). 14/Feb/2008. UN Photo/Marie Frechon.
