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Check Against Delivery

Remarks by H.E. Annalena Baerbock

President of the 80^th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

Press Briefing, 24 February 2026 ?

Palais des Nations, Geneva

Good morning and as this is my first time to address you as President of the General Assembly here in Geneva, I would like to thank you for being here as the ±¬ÁÏÍø press corps and also to get into the exchange.

As we are having this briefing on the 24^th of February I would like to start with a flashback. Four years ago, people in Europe woke up in another world because generations like mine have always had the privilege to live a life in peace. But this changed four years ago with the full invasion of Russia of the neighboring country of Ukraine. And within these four years the world has turned, but the situation for the millions of Ukrainians, millions of children has remained the same. And I will never forget one teenager¡¯s voice who I met in Kharkiv, just 40 kilometers from the Russian border, also on a cold winter¡¯s day of minus 15 degrees. And she said we fled to Italy, but we could not stay, seeing from outside our friends and relatives dying. Ukraine is my home, so she returned. I don¡¯t know if she is still alive because what I learned there as well is that in some parts of Ukraine you don¡¯t have time to get into shelters. They told me count to 40 and if you¡¯re still alive you made it because with rockets being shot over the border there is no time in many places to find a safer place.

This also meant that these teenage girls and all the other children could not go to school and her only wish was I would just like to play volleyball again like every girl in Europe.

So while the world has turned in the last four years, we should never get used to war. We should work every day for peace, even in the darkest hours, not only in Ukraine but everywhere else around the world. Every child around the world has the right to go to school and not to count until 40 to see if she or he is still alive.

And this is why, especially here in Geneva, where there is the international place for human rights, it is so important to underline that we need an immediate, full, and unconditional ceasefire. This war needs to finally end.

And let me also reiterate: any peace agreement must be grounded in the ±¬ÁÏÍø Charter, international law and General Assembly resolutions meaning respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine.

This is the clear, resolute, and unwavering position of the ±¬ÁÏÍø General Assembly, and this is the only path to a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace.

When I addressed the opening of the 61^st session of the Human Rights Council yesterday I called on Member States not to be silent bystanders when injustice unfolds, when human rights are attacked because we saw it in Ukraine, but we saw it also in so many other places around the world. Human rights violations, the attack on the dignity of people, are the first alarming signals of further horror to follow.

Therefore, we all need to protect and defend universal human rights and reaffirm that human rights are indivisible and?interconnected with the?other?pillars of our work: peace and security, and development.

Therefore, I urged Member States to uphold human rights not only here in Geneva or New York but also at the national level, in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in Ukraine, Sudan and Myanmar and so many other places around the world – everywhere, every day.

And above all, to promote and protect women¡¯s rights as human rights. Because women¡¯s rights are the indicator for the state of society. We see that in the most horrible dimension in Afghanistan, another forgotten crisis. In Afghanistan women and girls are facing the most severe, systematic human rights attacks. And we can also see, and I underlined that yesterday, that shying away from human rights abuses will never change it to the better, always to the worse.

From girls being denied schooling in Afghanistan and now being treated as second class humans, which doesn¡¯t exist in international law, but also to child marriage in Sahel, a woman shot in the face in Iran simply for demonstrating peacefully, and grandmothers reliving the horrors of sexual violence again and again in so many places.

Attacks on the rights of women and girls are a signal of a broader rollback on human rights.

Human rights, and women¡¯s rights, are the benchmark for the state of a society. In this regard I would like to underline again that human rights are fundamental to the ±¬ÁÏÍø, not new demands, not optional. As we are celebrating the 80^th year of the General Assembly and soon of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights there have been women¡¯s rights as human rights from the beginning. It says all humans, not all men.

 

Therefore, my main priority for the remainder of my time as President of the General Assembly is to defend this institution, its Charter, and the principles enshrined in it, because as human rights are under attack it is also the whole ±¬ÁÏÍø system.

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And I call on Member States not only here in Geneva but everywhere I go, to step up and stand up, to show leadership, to take a principled stand and to come together to build cross-regional alliances to protect and promote the principles of the Charter because they are the life insurance of most of countries around the world.

Another key priority will be the ±¬ÁÏÍø80 reform process, and I had the honor of debating with all the permanent representatives here in Geneva the different reform steps. This is an essential process, and it is more than just being more efficient. It¡¯s making this 80-year-old institution more modern, more agile, more effective to deliver on the ground.

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This includes also the selection process of the next Secretary-General, which will also fall into this session¡¯s term. The interactive dialogues will start on 20 April and again I would like to invite you also as correspondents here in Geneva to engage intensively in this process because the person we choose will be the face of the United Nations in the future.

For sure in these fragmented times, none of this is easy, and it can¡¯t be done alone. The motto for the 80^th session of the ±¬ÁÏÍøGA is Better Together, and when I chose this motto before being elected as PGA I didn¡¯t know how important this motto would be, but we see it all around the world; no one can face these challenges globally alone.

So being better together is also a motto underlining that there are so many fields in a positive way where joining hands makes you stronger, makes you better together. Our campaign is being showcased in the Palais des Nations this week, so if you go around you will see very important messages showing that the United Nations is saving lives every day, and I think this is the most noble thing you can do.

I thank you.

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