Suchergebnisse

ABSTRACTHumanitarianism – that is, the political, economic and military interference in the domestic affairs of a state justified by a nascent transnational morality – is one of the defining and most controversial features of the post-Cold War period. This article advances nine theses, arguing that humanitarianism has a simplistic worldview, that coercive humanitarian actions trigger negative consequences, that humanitarianism is quite effective in sheltering Western states from the spillover effects of political crises but is less so in solving the problems it claims to address. These arguments are illustrated with reference to four prominent cases: Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda and Darfur. The article concludes with a brief outline of an alternative humanitarian approach.

Over the last two decades a spate of books, led by the ones cited in this essay, have illuminated and debated the bristly questions confronting contemporary "humanitarianism." The definitional or, one might say, foundational question is whether the adjective "humanitarian" should be limited to only those independent agencies that are engaged (without reference to a political context) in the impartial delivery of emergency relief to all those in existential need—or, in the unique case of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), engaged in monitoring the application of the Geneva Conventions to armed conflict. An answer in the affirmative could be considered the "classic" position of the humanitarian, and one still championed by the ICRC. Today, however, many NGOs, such as CARE, OXFAM, and Catholic Relief Services, which certainly regard themselves as humanitarian agencies, engage in a broad range of rehabilitative and developmental activities and continue to deliver emergency relief, and they are prepared to do so under circumstances where their work has conspicuous political implications. The same is true of such UN agencies as UNICEF, UNHCR, and the World Food Programme, which are not infrequently involved in complex peace operations that have clear political goals as specified by the Security Council. Further, well-known humanitarian activists and writers, notably Bernard Kouchner and Samantha Power, also reject the ICRC's definitional canon. The unsettled boundaries of what properly constitutes humanitarianism brings a number of difficult questions to the surface, including:
•Should relief be provided even if it could prolong a conflict, or could indirectly assist a belligerent, or possibly identify the relief giver with a government's political ends? And should the nature of those ends influence relief efforts?•Should relief agencies also assist in addressing the causes of humanitarian emergencies by joining in efforts to resolve a conflict, foster economic development, rebuild state institutions, and strengthen the protection of human rights?•Should such agencies accept funds from governments where governments specify how the funds are to be used?•Where necessary, should they advocate armed intervention to protect their personnel as well as the recipients of their aid?•In terms of the way they organize and structure themselves, should nonprofit agencies dedicated to humanitarian relief follow private-sector models?•Can organizations dedicated to the effective provision of emergency relief pursue that end without creating a culture of dependence, without discouraging local initiative, and without violating the liberal "right" to participate in life-shaping decisions?•Finally, how does humanitarianism relate to human rights, the other leading expression of what I would call "the humanitarian impulse"?

Some have suggested that neutral humanitarianism is dead in the aftermath of the Cold War and 9/11. This article challenges the critical view called neo-humanitarianism and suggests that organizations such as the ICRC can carefully carve out an image of relative neutrality. This article argues that the difficulties associated with neutrality are not new and the ICRC has been grappling with them for decades. Various examples from history, including the Italian-Ethiopian War, World War II, and the Korean War, suggest the various complexities associated with neutrality. The fundamental focus of this article is how to construct an image and policies that are perceived to be relatively neutral in order to allow access to victims in need of humanitarian assistance and protection. Adapted from the source document.

This article examines the relationship between humanitarian aid and ecologically unequal exchange in the context of post-disaster reconstruction. I assess the manner in which humanitarian aid became a central part of the reconstruction process in India's Tamil Nadu state following the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. This article focuses on how the humanitarian "gift" of housing became a central plank of the state's efforts to push fishers inland while opening up coastal lands for various economic development projects such as ports, infrastructure, industries, and tourism. As part of the state and multilateral agency financed reconstruction process, the humanitarian aid regime provided "free" houses as gifts to recipients while expecting in return the formal abandonment of all claims to the coast. The humanitarian "gift" therefore helped depoliticize critical issues of land and resources, location and livelihood, which prior to the tsunami were subjects of long-standing political conflicts between local fisher populations and the state. The gift economy in effect played into an ongoing conflict over land and resources and effectively sought to ease the alienation of fishers from their coastal commons and near shore marine resource base. I argue that humanitarian aid, despite its associations with benevolence and generosity, presents a troubling and disempowering set of options for political struggles over land, resources, and social entitlements such as housing, thereby intensifying existing ecological and economic inequalities.

On March 19, 2011, French and British forces, with the military support of the United States, launched a massive attack against the Libyan army. The official objective of the air and naval strikes was to impose a no-fl y zone to protect the civilians of Misrata, Ajdabiya, and Benghazi from massacres predicted by the head of the Libyan National Transitional Council. Nine days later, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and British prime minister David Cameron jointly declared that "hundreds of thousands of people had thus been saved from a humanitarian disaster"—but, they added, "Libya was still confronted with a humanitarian crisis."