Given the gravity and number of existing allegations, the recent arrests of commanders allegedly responsible for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are but a welcome start.

To conclude, we welcome the presidential statement that was adopted at the start of today's debate (S/PRST/2010/25). As we know, the majority of casualties in a conflict are civilians. The Permanent Representative of Afghanistan, the preceding speaker, has just reminded us very well of what that means: the loss of life.

Thirdly, I would like to discuss an issue on which Australia has been particularly active. Uniformed components of peacekeeping missions need guidelines to implement protection-of-civilians mandates. Guidelines are necessary to enable troop and police contingents to understand their responsibilities and adequately prepare and execute protection-of-civilians mandates.

Secondly, we support the Secretary-General's call to move away from a selective approach to addressing the protection of civilians. We must acknowledge that peacekeeping is but one tool at the disposal of the Council in protecting civilians. The most effective way, of course, is to prevent the conflict in the first place.

My statement today will obviously not be able to do justice to all the challenges presented in the Secretary-General's report (S/2010/579), so I would like to briefly draw attention to three issues. First, we need to ensure there is greater compliance with international humanitarian law. Australia is concerned about the increased indiscriminate targeting of civilians with explosive weapons, including improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Despite some progress, much work obviously and inevitably remains to be done. Public information strategies are needed to manage international and local expectations regarding the ability of a peacekeeping mission to protect civilians, including the reality that peacekeepers cannot possibly protect everyone, everywhere, all of the time.

With the adoption of resolution 1894 (2009) exactly a year ago, the Council introduced new provisions focusing on humanitarian access in the implementation of protection mandates in peacekeeping operations.

Today's debate offers another opportunity for the Council to evaluate the progress made on key issues, such as the implementation of resolution 1894 (2009), and to indicate areas where further focus is needed, including the enhancement of compliance with international humanitarian law and the strengthening of accountability for violations thereof.

The concept of the protection of civilians is founded on the universally accepted rules of humanitarian and human rights law, which are set down in a range of international legal instruments. For that reason, we believe that the Council could more effectively seek thorough compliance by all parties with the norms of international humanitarian law.

The commitment of the Organization is needed to prevent the recurrence of the horrors of the past. It is often possible to detect in a society elements that set off alarms regarding the possible emergence of situations of massive and serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law.