President,
The significance of this decision goes far beyond the Gaza conflict. It is about our responsibility to protect vulnerable groups in armed conflict. It is about restoring the role of international humanitarian law and the full respect for fundamental principles which are the foundation of the UN. Nothing less.
We believe the main focus of the draft resolution is relevant and constructive. The investigations by the parties should be independent and credible and comply with international standards. The UN Secretary-General and the UN Human Rights Council should be mandated to secure the international monitoring of the national investigations. In order for the message to come through, we presented a very limited proposal that would have allowed for much broader support.
Norway strongly regrets that the main sponsors did not take this on board. We believe that the failure to do so demonstrates that this decision is not only about protecting victims of armed conflict in Gaza, in Southern Israel or indeed elsewhere. We cannot interpret this as anything but a wish to preserve the politicization on Middle East issues we see far too often. Yet again we are turning what is an existential question at the UN in to a highly politicized debate. This is not in the interest of the victims we all claim to speak for.
For this reason, we abstained on the draft resolution.