On Sunday 21 September 2025, at an event chaired by Australia’s Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, the Ministerial Group for the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel launched the Declaration for the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel. This Ministerial Group, comprising Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Sierra Leone, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, first announced their intention to adopt a new Declaration during the UN General Assembly High-level Week in 2024. The push for a new document to protect humanitarian personnel was led by Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and follows the death of Lalzawmi ‘Zomi’ Frankcom, an Australian aid worker who was killed by an Israeli drone strike while working for the World Central Kitchen Charity in Gaza.
When Senator Wong announced that Australia would be championing this new Declaration, she highlighted that 2023 was ‘the deadliest year on record for humanitarian personnel’. As recorded by the Aid Workers Database, the horrific statistics in that year (280 humanitarian workers killed) have now been surpassed by the 2024 figure of 383 aid worker fatalities across 27 countries (a number repeated by Tom Fletcher, the Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, at the launch). In both years, the increase in deaths is largely attributable to the conflict in Gaza, although there are increasing fatalities in less reported conflicts, including in Sudan and South Sudan.
The Declaration is not a legally binding document, but joins other political declarations, such as the Safe Schools Declaration (2015) and the Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences Arising from the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas (2022), which are designed to deal with particular issues in armed conflict. As Human Rights Watch has explained in relation to the 2022 Declaration on the Use of Explosive Weapons, political declarations can serve a number of useful purposes, including clarifying the law, shaping state behaviour and improving the implementation of international law.
This new Declaration highlights the existing ‘clear and comprehensive’ legal framework for protecting humanitarian workers (para 7). Therefore, one question is the extent to which the Declaration supports or potentially extends the current protections in international humanitarian law and international human rights law. This question will be considered in relation to three issues: the definition of ‘humanitarian personnel’, the legal obligations to protect humanitarian personnel, and the obligation on states to facilitate humanitarian assistance.
Who are Humanitarian Personnel?
While the question of ‘who’ is a humanitarian worker may seem marginal (‘I know one when I see one’), it is important to identify the object of protection. This is particularly so given the wide range of institutions (international and non-governmental), governments and private companies who describe their work in conflict zones as ‘humanitarian’. The controversy surrounding the role of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private company distributing aid in Gaza, highlights the difficulties with attaching the label ‘humanitarian’ to a name vis-à-vis the requirements of international humanitarian law.
The new Declaration does not define the object of its protection – but the multiple references to international humanitarian law indicate that it is designed to protect those already covered by the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols, which refer to ‘impartial humanitarian organizations’ or ‘humanitarian and impartial’ relief actions. In this context, ‘impartiality’ refers to the need for humanitarian action to be undertaken without discrimination. While the Declaration does not specify impartiality, it reinforces this quality through the call for resources to protect certain personnel (those who work for ‘UN bodies, the International Red Cross and Red Cresent Movement, and other impartial humanitarian organisations’ (para 20)) as well as the slightly oblique reference to enabling ‘humanitarian organisations to act in line with humanitarian principles’ (para 21.1(b)). The fact that the Declaration commits signatory states to take ‘practical action’ to ‘actively de-politicise humanitarian action’ (para 21.2(f)) also highlights the importance of impartiality, as well as neutrality – the obligation not to take sides in a conflict.
As a final point on terminology, although media attention is often focussed on attacks against international aid workers, appropriately the Declaration recognises that local personnel carry the greatest risks (para 21.3(a)). Consequently, the Declaration calls for the strengthening of the protective regime for ‘international, national and local humanitarian personnel’ (para 21(3)(a)).
The Obligation to Protect Humanitarian Personnel
As civilians, humanitarian workers are entitled to protection against targeting pursuant to international humanitarian law. In addition, the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols protect the ‘humanitarian activities’ of the ICRC and impartial humanitarian organisations and provide that certain types of personnel shall be ‘respected and protected’. The ICRC Customary International Humanitarian Law study (CIHLS) indicates that this is a rule of customary international law covering humanitarian relief personnel without distinction.
On this point the Declaration is unequivocal – state signatories reaffirm the need to respect and protect humanitarian personnel’ (para 11), commit to ‘taking practical action to increase the protection of humanitarian personnel’ (para 21), and, importantly, commit to investigating incidents and prosecuting perpetrators (para 21.4(a)). This pledge is similar to the call in Security Council resolution 2730, adopted in May 2024, to investigate and take action against those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law against humanitarian personnel. However, the Declaration’s practical measures are more precise than those in the Security Council resolution, for example, calling for a ‘humanitarian financing mechanism’ to provide resources for humanitarian workers’ security (para 20). This option is particularly important given the suggested link between the reduction in US aid funding and the decreased security of humanitarian personnel in the last year. In addition, the Declaration highlights the need to protect the independence of journalists and work with technology companies to counter misinformation and disinformation (para 21.2(f)).
A related question is ‘who’ should protect humanitarian personnel in the field. This is a thorny issue given concern amongst humanitarian organisations that armed escorts provided by a party to the conflict could increase the prospects of an attack from opposing forces and undermine perceptions of neutrality. Appropriately, the Declaration avoids this issue instead focussing on support for humanitarian organisations’ ability to ensure their own security, for example, through better tracking of risks, facilitating ‘real-time communication between parties to the conflict and humanitarian organisations’ and strengthening support for the UN Security Management System (para 21).
The Obligation to Facilitate Humanitarian Assistance
Pursuant to international humanitarian law, states have the primary obligation to provide relief to the civilian population – this applies in situations of occupation and in non-international armed conflict. However, the Declaration focuses on the role of states and non-state parties in facilitating the humanitarian work of others. As Rebecca Barber writes, international humanitarian law and international human rights law provide support for the obligation on states to facilitate humanitarian assistance. Rule 55 of the CIHLS provides that ‘[t]he parties to the conflict must allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need … subject to their right of control’. The Study recognises the necessity of state consent but also highlights that it cannot be withheld on ‘arbitrary grounds’.
The consent requirement is implicit in the Declaration given the commitment to ‘full, safe, rapid and unhindered humanitarian access for the delivery of humanitarian assistance in accordance with relevant international law obligations’ (para 21.2). The various steps in enabling humanitarian access include the use of ‘diplomatic tools’, ‘streamlining bureaucratic and administrative processes’ that may impede humanitarian assistance, civil-military training, and undertaking an assessment of the potential for exported weapons to be used ‘to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law’ (para 21.2). This last provision picks up on the obligation in the Arms Trade Treaty to undertake a risk assessment when authorising the export of certain weapons to determine whether they could be used in violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law.
Another issue of note in the Declaration’s text is the recognition of the damage caused to both the security of humanitarian personnel and access to humanitarian assistance when states criminalise the activities of humanitarian organisations (paras 6, 21.2(d)). Further clarification of states’ legal obligations to facilitate humanitarian access and the impact of a ban on humanitarian organisations’ work may be provided by the ICJ when it answers the General Assembly’s request for an Advisory Opinion on Israel’s ban on UNWRA.
Next Steps
Organisations such as the Australian Red Cross, Save the Children, the Australian Council for International Development and World Vision have joined with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and 110 states (at the time of writing), in supporting this new instrument.
In response to the question whether the Declaration reiterates or extends the current legal framework, the answer would appear to be both. It supports states’ obligations under international humanitarian law as well as providing greater detail in terms of practical steps to implement the legal framework. The Declaration is lengthy – comprising 26 paragraphs – and no doubt there will be further commentary on each of the steps set out in the text and the four key areas of work, labelled as adherence, access, alignment and accountability. For example, the commitment to support the Security Council’s consideration of measures against ‘individuals or entities responsible for harm to humanitarian personnel’ under Article 41 of the UN Charter (para 21.4(e)) will no doubt draw particular attention.
The focus will now be on implementation in order to reverse the current trend, labelled by Tom Fletcher as ‘zero accountability, international inaction and apathy’. As Kate Forbes, the IFRC President recognised at the launch, ‘protection is not achieved in conference halls’. Ultimately, it will be a decrease in the number and severity of attacks on humanitarian personnel that will determine whether the Declaration has been successful in achieving its purpose.
Alison Duxbury
Alison Duxbury is a Professor of Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, and is currently a Visiting Professor at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, and a Visiting Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. She researches and teaches in international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
