Phyrric Victories and the Collapse of Humanitarian Principles

© 2002 Matthew S. Parry – All Rights Reserved

“A humanitarian operation is not a militant operation, and to attach any political objective or connotation to it would undoubtedly impair its credibility for all concerned in a conflict situation, and consequently its acceptability and efficacy.”  Yves Sandoz, excerpt from ‘Implementation of International Humanitarian Law: Challenges and New Approaches’, Third International Security Forum, Zurich, October 1998.

“Humanitarian action is designed not to resolve conflicts but to protect human dignity and save lives. To maintain its neutral and impartial character and, consequently, the trust of all the parties to the conflict, it must be clearly dissociated from political and military measures the international community may take in search for conflict resolution. Only by strictly respecting the specificity of each other's mandates can military and humanitarian actors work ‘separately together’…” Jacques Forster, Vice President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, presented at the Ninth Annual Seminar on International Humanitarian Law, Geneva, 8-9 March 2000

Traditional humanitarian principles are decaying at an alarming rate.  Although the 1967-1970 debacle in Biafra, Nigeria may have foretold imminent changes in the nature of humanitarian action, it was not until after the end of the Cold War that the organic principles that formulate and guideemergency responses truly began to whither.

Ironically, the erosion of traditional humanitarianism’s tenets – especially impartiality, neutrality and independence – is a partial consequence of former United Nations (UN) Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s 1992 “An Agenda for Peace”.  Although the 86-point agenda endeavoured to strengthen the effectiveness of humanitarian activities by proposing a causal link between poverty and conflict, calling for placing greater emphasis on human rights protection, increasing efforts to settle internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees, and fortifying post-conflict recovery mechanisms (especially those aimed at reducing poverty), it also tacitly challenged certain elements of sovereignty by advocating more aggressive peacekeeping operations before, during and after conflicts.  While this credo appeared after the forcible creation of two ‘safe havens’ in Iraq in 1991, it resonated clearly throughout military interventions in Somalia (1992-93), Bosnia (1994-95), Kosovo-Metohija (1999), East Timor (2000) and Afghanistan (2001-2002).  Ironically, influential governments have not employed this tactic at other junctures, such as Rwanda, Chechnya or the West Bank.

However, An Agenda for Peace is merely one component of a much larger process, and alone does not explain why respect for traditional humanitarian principles is in decline; rather, the proliferation of intra-state conflicts has had a more substantive impact on the way in which humanitarian assistance is provided.  The socio-economic and political inequalities in countries such as former Yugoslavia and former Zaïre, as well as the delayed consequences of de-colonisation in areas such as the Great Lakes region, have put a new onus on relief workers.   Attendant obstacles, such as difficulties in distinguishing civilians from combatants, the dramatic increase in the number of civilian casualties, [1] an increased reliance on (external) military troops for the creation and maintenance of humanitarian space, (selective) military interventions on ‘humanitarian’ grounds, and the emergence of war economies in failed states, has forced relief workers to re-evaluate the purpose of their activities. 

Or have they?  Questions currently challenging the principles of humanitarian action are not purely academic: can effective traditional humanitarian action substitute for political action?  How have the changing nature of conflict and the rise of external military interventions affected traditional humanitarian principles? What is the impact of real-time media coverage on humanitarian actions?  Can humanitarian actions be both impartial and neutral?

In considering these questions, this paper will show not only how traditional humanitarian principles have methodically degenerated during responses to man-made and, in some cases, natural emergencies since the end of the Cold War, but also how political and military agendas have redefined core elements of modern humanitarianism.  This discussion will be prefaced with a review of several fundamental humanitarian concepts, followed by an overview of the evolution of humanitarian action. The diminished role of state sovereignty will then be analysed as it relates to military intervention and humanitarian action, after which the ways in which military interventions have affected humanitarianism will be considered. Finally, the paper will take a closer look at the positive and negative impacts of mass media.

Two terms that are frequently misunderstood are ‘impartiality’ and ‘neutrality’.  So fundamental are these principles to the legitimacy of a humanitarian action, and particularly to International Humanitarian Law (IHL), that they are embodied in the Geneva Conventions [2] and the Red Cross Movement’s Code of Conduct. [3] As Nick Leader has noted, the principles of impartiality and neutrality, “…are intended to guide activities of humanitarian agencies and to mark them out as a distinct form of intervention, solely to reduce suffering and protect life in conflict…”. [4]    

Impartial humanitarian action is the provision of relief to non-combatants based solely on need; however, it does not imply an equitable provision of relief.   But by manipulating the definition of ‘need’, relief agencies and donors can influence how much relief is provided, as well as to whom.  Because the definition is inherently subjective, local and external bodies pursuing political agendas often influence the provision of relief.  Moreover, relief agencies themselves may insist that critical needs persist, for reasons primarily related to their dependence on donor funding, in order to maintain their operational presence.

The principle of neutrality requires external actors to abstain from activities that would afford a political or military advantage to one side over another.  As Jean Pictet observed: “[neutrality]…is indeed a form of discipline we impose upon ourselves, a brake applied to the impulsive urges of our feelings.  A man who follows this arduous path will discover that it is rare in a controversy to find one party is completely right and the other completely wrong…”. [5] However, Alex de Waal and Omar Rakiyahave sardonically described neutrality as an ‘aspiration’: “There is a tendency to believe that neutrality need only be asserted to be proved, that humanitarianism is so transparent that it is immediately acceptable to all parties to the conflict….” [6]

Indeed, most relief agencies completely abandoned the principles of impartiality and neutrality in Kosovo-Metohija following NATO’s 1999 campaign by categorically ignoring the needs of the Serbs and Roma who remained in favour of the ethnic Albanian population. In fact, many of the Serbs that remained were either defenceless pensioners or otherwise believed that because they took no direct part in the Serb military’s aggression, they would not be harmed by the returning ethnic Albanians. Raymond Apthorpe has summarised this phenomenon by saying: “Professional codes of conduct for behaviour [in Kosovo-Metohija] were either unknown, neglected or denied.  Instead, a sort of ‘institutional amateurism’ ruled. This lack of due professionalism extended to at best an ambiguous conceptualisation – for operational purposes – of what exactly a ‘crisis’ (and different types of ‘crisis’) would and should connote for the organisations concerned.  By some standards, no assistance emergency, as classically defined, actually occurred.” [7]

There have been instances where seemingly neutral humanitarian action unknowingly abetted a warring party. For example, internationally financed refugee camps inside (former) Zaire provided humanitarian assistance to nearly one million (mostly Hutu) Rwandan refugees by 1996.  Living among these refugees were thousands of ex-FAR militia who used the camps as oases for regrouping and recruiting a new military force determined to avenge their grievances in Rwanda.  Consequently, these militia not only conducted cross-border incursions into Rwanda to destabilise the new Tutsi government, but they also joined with elements of the Zaïrian armed forces to attack ethnic Tutsis inside Zaïre.

However, given the proliferation of external military interventions since the end of the Cold War, it can reasonably be argued that discussions about neutrality currently pertain more to military responses in complex humanitarian emergencies (CHEs) and complex political emergencies (CPEs) than to traditional humanitarian action.  A conflict of interests arises when direct military action is contemplated: how can an external military intervention with a humanitarian impetus be neutral when it is launched specifically to assist one cause over another?  Indeed, the term ‘humanitarian intervention’ is a misnomer of almost oxymoronic proportions because, by definition, it rejects the concept of neutrality.

Although donor governments and the UN have emphasised the importance of impartiality and neutrality, many relief agencies argue that strict adherence is all but impossible due to unpredictable operating conditions.  However, because adherence to these principles is voluntary,

non-adherence by one agency alone can influence other agencies to reject them as well. To this end, Leader has noted that, “…while upholding and respecting humanitarian principles is the responsibility of states and warring parties, the respect for the principles of humanitarian action is the responsibility of humanitarian agencies.” [8]  On the contrary, the ICRC has argued that humanitarianism is but a façade where impartiality and neutrality are not vigorously respected.  As Joanna Macrae and Nick Leader have observed, where impartiality and neutrality are absent, partisan politics will dictate the nature and scale of external assistance; thus, a ‘humanitarian action’ effectively becomes a ‘political action’. [9]

Despite what many believe, ‘humanitarian action’ and ‘humanitarian intervention’ are not synonymous. Humanitarian action is generally understood as the provision of life-sustaining materials such as food, water and shelter; as Dylan Hendrickson has written, “…[humanitarian action] was never intended to do more than relieve acute suffering until solutions to the underlying crisis could be found by others…”. [10]    In contrast, a military activity conducted to achieve what is often publicised as a humanitarian objective, such as the prevention of egregious human rights violations (e.g., creating safe havens), is commonly referred to as a “humanitarian intervention”. Adam Roberts has generally described a humanitarian intervention as,  “…[a] military intervention in a state, without the approval of its authorities, and with the purpose of preventing widespread suffering or death among the inhabitants.” [11]

Many mistakenly believe that any activity publicised as ‘humanitarian’ is inherently good, regardless of the action taken.  While legitimate humanitarian action is impartial and neutral, a humanitarian (military) intervention rarely satisfies these criteria.  In fact, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is not even comfortable with associating the term ‘humanitarian’ with anything other than impartial and neutral acts intended to alleviate suffering: “From the viewpoint of humanitarian law, it is a contradiction in terms to speak of humanitarian ‘intervention’ or ‘interference’, as the term ‘humanitarian’ should be reserved to describe action intended to alleviate the suffering of the victims”. [12]

One egregious example of a political (and military) intervention falsely publicised as a humanitarian action was ultimately adjudicated through the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 1986.  In “Nicaragua v. United States of America”, [13] the ICJ ruled that a humanitarian action must be impartial in order to be distinguished from a breach of State sovereignty: “…if the provision of ‘humanitarian assistance’ is to escape condemnation as an intervention in the internal affairs of another State, it must be limited to the purposes hallowed in the practice of the Red Cross, and above all be given without discrimination.”  Although this ruling did not concretely define ‘humanitarian action’ or ‘humanitarian assistance’, the ICJ reaffirmed the Red Cross Movement’s standards as tools for broadly delineating humanitarian action from humanitarian intervention. [14]

Because military interventions overtly breach notions of state sovereignty afforded in Article 2(4) of Chapter I of the UN Charter, they must therefore satisfy the humanitarian imperative (the alleviation of human suffering) to qualify as humanitarian.  However, for an intervention to be even remotely legitimate on humanitarian grounds, it must further satisfy the conditions established in Article 42 of Chapter VII, which require the full support of the UN Security Council. [15] With few exceptions, such as Operation Restore Hope in Somalia (1992-3), Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti (1994) and Operation Boleas in Lesotho (1998), most military interventions conducted in the past twenty-five years have been illegitimate because they lacked UNSC approval. [16]

Certainly there are circumstances when military interventions are viable options, such as after the Bosnian Serbs’ invasion of Srebrenica. [17] However, the proliferation of unsanctioned military interventions that have been publicly justified on humanitarian grounds, such as NATO’s logistical support to the Croatian Army in 1995, [18] undermines the “neutrality” of international peacekeepers and relief agencies alike.

Humanitarian Impulse vs. Humanitarian Imperative

The prevailing confusion between humanitarian action and intervention has been provoked in part by a proliferation of relief activities motivated more by a humanitarian impulse rather than the humanitarian imperative. International relief agencies and their donors are becoming more impulsive about humanitarian assistance because they increasingly provide relief in the midst of conflict, which exposes them to what are perceived as higher degrees of human suffering.  Activities that address the humanitarian imperative have been overshadowed by those that are impulsive (which are more likely to be emotionally-charged and based on incomplete or biased media coverage); this is not to suggest, however, that a humanitarian impulse and the humanitarian imperative are incompatible notions.

Activities driven by a humanitarian impulse have underlying deontological beliefs, which generally assert that action (or intervention) must be taken to safeguard humanitarian principles, regardless of possible negative consequences. Such motivations run the risk of being short-sighted and therefore can create local socio-economic problems and/or political tensions that did not previously exist.  In addition, deontologically-motivated activities can prolong a conflict by (impulsively) supporting those portrayed as victims in the media.

Impulsive activities can have negative consequences in natural disasters as well. Following Hurricane Mitch in 1998, relief agencies shipped hundreds of containers of unsolicited commodities to Central America with little or no forethought. Although well-intentioned, items such as second-hand clothing presented not only legitimate sanitation concerns for recipients, but also decimated the economic livelihoods of local clothing store owners by saturating local markets with free clothing.  Of this phenomenon, one US Government official, remarked, “even if someone’s good impulse has potentially disastrous implications, there’s generally no one to stop it.” [19]

On the contrary, the humanitarian imperative is arguably more aligned with a teleological perspective, which generally asserts that the consequences (of a humanitarian action or military intervention) must be evaluated before acting. Teleologists therefore occasionally decide to provide less or no assistance if it is determined that their actions will ultimately undermine their impartiality or otherwise jeopardise their ability to access beneficiaries in the future (by alienating a belligerent).  One highly publicised, albeit unfortunate, example of telelogical decision-making occurred in the DPRK: following a series of disagreements with Pyongyang over distribution plans and access to beneficiaries, a number of relief agencies terminated their projects and withdrew rather than relinquish their independence and impartiality. [20]

Sean Greenaway has lamented that a ‘new humanitarianism’ has thus emerged: “Donor (and not beneficiary) states are the main ‘customers’ buying humanitarian services and have driven an enormous and well-documented expansion in the sector […new humanitarianism is] characterised as a conceptual space permitting deontological, but not teleological, rupture with classical humanitarian thought.” [21] NATO’s decision to bomb the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) for 78 days in 1999, for example, was not in response to an actual humanitarian crisis (the low-level conflict had been on-going since 1989). Rather, it was to punish Belgrade for not being sufficiently democratic and for its past role in destabilising the region.  The ensuing refugee crisis was an unintended result of NATO’s impulsive decision to not only intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, but also to champion one cause over another.  Once NATO attacked, however, the humanitarian imperative compelled donors and relief agencies to fulfil their respective obligations, although they later admitted that wholesale genocide had, in fact, not occurred. [22]   Collectively, these decisions caused considerable political and socio-economic destabilisation in the region (e.g., the FRY’s Preševo Valley in 2000-2001 and throughout FYRoM in 2001) while also straining emergency relief budgets of many Western governments.

Because many agencies rely heavily on large government grants, [23] the donors’ agendas often dictate the activities’ nature and duration.  Thus, when a humanitarian impulse – rather than the humanitarian imperative – drives a donor’s response, relief agencies’ activities can become skewed. One post-Hurricane Mitch (1999) report noted: “Although access to potable water was restored [in Honduras] by mid-November [1999], US Department of Defense logs show that airlifts continued through the Christmas holidays of tons of bottled water…the air freight cost, based on Pentagon figures, [was] US $7.60 a gallon, about 25 times the cost of shipping by sea”. [24]

The Evolution of Humanitarian Action

Early practices of humanitarian action were largely based on shared cultural or religious identities and contained only vague humanitarian components. For example, a combined (Christian) military force from France, Russia and the Great Britain battled the (Muslim) Ottoman Empire on ‘humanitarian’ grounds during Greece’s 1827-29 War of Independence.  Further, a multilateral European (Christian) force intervened in (present-day) Lebanon in 1860-1861 to presumably to prevent (Muslim) Druze and Turkish militia from killing (Christian) Maronites. 

Although the first half of the twentieth century produced two world wars that generated clear humanitarian dilemmas, few humanitarian initiatives occurred, with the exception of the Berlin Airlift (which in itself had strong political overtones).  However, as States came to appreciate the post-Cold War’s new geo-political order, the awkward marriage of political and humanitarian concerns also gradually emerged.

One of the Cold War’s first ‘humanitarian’ crises resulted when several hundred thousand Palestinian refugees poured into neighbouring countries after Israel’s violent creation in 1948. In response, the UN established the Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in 1949 to attend to their needs.  Among the initial infrastructure projects proposed in the early 1950s were a US $110 million programme to irrigate the Sinai desert and a US $250 million grant to Arab governments to facilitate the resettlement of up to 200,000 Palestinian refugees (in the newly irrigated areas).  While Arab governments initially welcomed the creation of UNRWA because of its ability to keep the plight of the Palestinian refugees on the UN’s agenda, they have since sought to limit the scope and intensity of its ‘humanitarian’ operations, which they viewed as a substitute for political action.    Because UNRWA’s mandate has never included the resettlement of refugees, the agency’s “care and maintenance” activities have been widely interpreted as a failed attempt to appease a population with humanitarian action in lieu of durable political solutions.

As the Cold War continued, droit d’ingérence (roughly, the ‘right to intervene’) slowly gained acceptance as States began to justify intervention if it was felt that national security was threatened, or in order to protect their own nationals living abroad. [25]   India’s 1971 invasion of (former) East Pakistan is one example of how droit d’ingérence evolved during the Cold War; although India initially justified its intervention on humanitarian grounds following the influx of several million ethnic Bengali refugees fleeing an oppressive West Pakistani Army, many saw the intervention as being motivated more by political agendas than a genuine humanitarian concern. [26]   Likewise, Tanzania’s 1979 invasion of Uganda occurred under a vague humanitarian pretence: Idi Amin’s human rights record was probably of less  interest to Dar Es Salaam than the memory of Kampala’s failed attempt to annex more than 700 square miles of Tanzanian territory in 1978. [27]

A humanitarian milestone occurred in Ethiopia during the mid-1980s in the midst of what was, effectively, a man-made famine. Prior to committing to the relief effort, Western governments wrestled with allegations that not only was Ethiopia’s Government deliberately starving civilians in Tigray in reprisal for their insurrection, but also that internationally donated food relief had been diverted to Ethiopia’s army.  Further, it was feared that the Government would use international food aid as an incentive for its controversial resettlement practices.  However, a massive international media campaign that began in the United Kingdom and, to a lesser extent, the US’s “a hungry child knows no politics” policy, resulted in donor governments financing and delivering more than one million metric tonnes of food aid to Ethiopia by 1985.

The term “complex emergency” first emerged in the late 1980s to illustrate the devastating effects of armed conflict and natural disasters that simultaneously plagued Mozambique.  With the recent exception of Afghanistan (which simultaneously endured a failed state, drought, protracted in-fighting, food shortages and locust infestation between 1996-2002), few emergencies have truly met this criterion.  Nonetheless, the media, donors and relief agencies morphed the term into “complex humanitarian ” (CHE), which the public has somehow been led to believe is more tragic than a mere “complex” or natural emergency.  In addition, the term “complex political emergency” (CPE) evolved, but only occasionally generating an international response since the notion lacks high degrees of public compassion.  One example of a CPE that captivated public interest and donor response – because it was publicised as a CHE – was the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. 

More recently, elements of the massive military campaign in Afghanistan have been portrayed as ‘humanitarian’, primarily due to the West’s general discomfort with the Taliban’s dismal human rights record, its alleged involvement in drug trafficking and tolerance of terrorist cells.  The renewed interest in Afghanistan is noteworthy for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the sudden reversal of attention after the dismal response to the UN Consolidated Interagency Appeal between 1994-2000. [28]    Not surprisingly, the intensive media coverage of the war against the Taliban regime renewed donor interest in addressing the basic needs that had been neglected during the last eight years. [29]   While there is little doubt that the Afghan population, especially women and children, will fare better under any government other than the Taliban, humanitarian assistance does not appear to have been the primary motivating factor for donors’ interest.  Rather the ‘humanitarian’ flag has again been hoisted to muster public support for underlying political goals.

State Sovereignty

The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia not only formally ended the Thirty Years War in Europe, but also affirmed the principle of sovereignty by prohibiting outside interference in any State’s internal affairs.  Although this principle prevailed until the beginning of the Second World War, the political and economic disengagement that followed the end of the Cold War created a vacuum in which a number of political proxy-states, such as (former) Zaire, Angola and Mozambique, collapsed and living standards plummeted.  Moreover, countries with deep-seeded inequalities or grievances based on ethnicity and/or religion, such as Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and Liberia, imploded and created an unprecedented demand for humanitarian assistance.  Consequently, states began to invoke ‘humanitarian’ concerns to justify (selective) military action, thereby posing a direct challenge to the concept of sovereignty conveyed in Article 2(7) of the UN Charter.

While military intervention has become prima facie permissible under Chapter VII of the UN Charter (i.e., to maintain or restore international peace and security), a State’s sovereignty can no longer be considered more valuable than a population’s fundamental human rights.  As such, a government’s absolute authority over domestic affairs is no longer sacrosanct.   Indeed, one of the most laudable characteristics of post-Cold War humanitarianism is the use of human rights to re-define the parameters of humanitarian action.  However, the broad use of human rights violations as a justification to ignore state sovereignty has become one of humanitarianism’s most controversial issues; ‘humanitarian’ interventions in Northern Iraq, Somalia, and the FRY all relied on the protection of human rights as primary grounds for military action.  In recognising the importance of human rights protection, the UN Security Council generally supports forceful interventions in response to serious and/or systematic breaches, although it rarely authorises third-party military activity to redress human rights violations.  UN Resolution 1244 (June 1999) crystallised this concept by empowering the UN with indefinite administrative control over Kosovo-Metohija, despite the fact that it is part of a sovereign state (the FRY).

Richard Haass, Director of the US Department of State’s Office of Policy Planning, has provided unusually blunt insight not only as to how this practice continues to evolve, but also as to how political agendas will continue to influence humanitarian action in the future: “Sovereignty entails obligations.  One is not to massacre your own people. Another is not to support terrorism in any way. If a government fails to meet these obligations, then it forfeits some of the normal advantages of sovereignty, including the right to be left alone inside your own territory.  Other governments, including the US, gain the right to intervene…” [30]

This general dilution has naturally influenced humanitarian action; consider, for example, the distinction between refugees and IDPs. From a moral point of view the distinction is almost preposterous – treating the internally displaced differently than refugees seems more motivated by the desire to have a reason not to intervene than by humanitarian concerns.  The actual difference is important, since a refugee crisis is more likely to attract an international response, owing to the probability that the host nation will not be adequately prepared to handle a sudden influx, or if the influx would have regional political ramifications. However, if one talks about internally displaced persons, the issue is more easily considered a domestic matter, thus allowing States and international organizations to exempt themselves, especially if a military intervention would not be in their best interests.  In fact, this may explain why the UN has an agency mandated to exclusively protect refugees, but no such agency specifically for IDPs.  Consequently, a grey area has emerged between respect for State sovereignty, human rights protection and humanitarian action, thereby allowing greater political and military liberties to be pursued under the guise of humanitarianism.

This grey area is not limited to the selectivity of military interventions and victim classification; it has also spawned new methods of providing relief that rebuke the concept of sovereignty, especially in failed states.  In order to by-pass an uncooperative Ethiopian Government, for example, private relief agencies distributed more than 90,000 tonnes of famine relief in the mid-1980s through cross-border operations.  Following the end of the 1990 Gulf War, private relief agencies and donors operating in Northern Iraq did not seek entry visas from Baghdad; rather, they entered through Turkey with permits issued from Ankara (or via Syria with no permits issued at all).

More recently, relief agencies and donors used FYRoM (and, to a lesser extent, Montenegro and Albania) as a logistical hub for extensive cross-border operations following the return of ethnic-Albanian refugees to Kosovo-Metohija in 1999-2000.   Because relief personnel did not obtain proper visas to enter, travel and work within the countries in question – much less apply for and receive import approvals for the commodities they distributed – the agencies’ actions were a collective de facto rejection of the State’s sovereignty.  While these may appear to be minor details to be contemplated during an emergency operation, not all relief activities are conducted under these circumstances, even during a famine. For example, the DPRK Government has exerted tremendous control over relief provided in response to the devastating famine that has persisted since the mid-1990s, albeit with negligible benefits for the intended beneficiaries. Every possible facet of relief activities have been subject to Government approval, including which agencies are allowed to enter the country and the nationalities of their expatriate staff. [31]

As such, donors’ and private relief agencies’ de facto rejection of a weak (or failed) State’s legal right to control its borders and domestic affairs demonstrates how political and military action based on diminished views of State sovereignty are have infected humanitarian action.  However, where a strong State is operating, such as in DPRK, donors and agencies have no choice but to respect State sovereignty.

Military Intervention and Humanitarian Action

Perhaps the most contentious trend affecting humanitarian action since the end of the Cold War is the involvement of external military troops, occasionally under UN supervision. Of this trend Antonio Donini has written: “One of the paradoxical consequences of the end of the Cold War is the sudden appearance of the military in the humanitarian arena, a front where they were seldom seen in the past. The Cold War had dictated the parameters of conflict…‘crises’ were mainly mono-dimensional, either political / military or humanitarian.” [32]

While external military troops can facilitate humanitarian action by providing logistical support and security, their presence can also have negative implications, especially when they lack clear mandates, as was the case in both Kosovo-Metohija (1999) and Afghanistan (2001-2002).   Following the terrorist attacks on the US in September 2001, the on-going CHE in Afghanistan came to the forefront of the world’s attention when the US and UK attacked the Taliban regime and its infamous alter ego, al Qaeda.

However, beneath the “good versus evil” patina initially posited by the West is an example of how easily the military intervention in Afghanistan has turned into a humanitarian nightmare.  Through its campaign to win the hearts and minds of the Afghani people, select units of the US military adopted (western-style) civilian and local (“mufti”) clothing and engaged in humanitarian activities (albeit limited).  Although the US military defended its civilian dress code as being necessary to protect the troops from being obvious targets in public spaces, it also made armed soldiers practically indistinguishable from true relief workers (dressed in western style clothing), especially in areas where legitimate humanitarian agencies were operating. [33]   Thus, the uneasy encroachment of military involvement on traditional humanitarian activities has again deepened.

A distinction must be made between legitimate and illegitimate interventions, as it cannot be said that all interventions in the name of humanitarianism have – or will – conform with the UN Charter, much less the Geneva Conventions.  NATO’s campaign against the FRY in 1999 is a prime example, since it illustrates not only inherent differences, but also how military actions are rarely neutral. [34]   By forcing an apocalyptic-like confrontation with Belgrade, NATO’s massive “humanitarian war” created havoc throughout Kosovo-Metohija, resulting in a rapid exodus of nearly 800,000 ethnic-Albanian refugees into Albania, FYRoM and Montenegro.  NATO justified its actions through a sympathetic media that (falsely) claimed that the refugees’ predicament was not a result of the war, but rather the war’s raison d’être . [35]    Further, the intervention was not neutral; it neither targeted the ethnic Albanian paramilitaries (KLA) who were equally guilty of committing gross human rights violations against Serbs, nor was NATO’s force proportional to the violence it intended to halt.  NATO violated Protocol I by attacking public water and electricity supplies in Serbia [36] and its own charter by attacking a sovereign state for reasons other than self-defence.  Moreover, NATO rebuked the spirit of Chapter VII of the UN Charter by not obtaining UN Security Council approval. [37]

The Role of Mass Media

The gradual proliferation of real-time media coverage of complex emergencies since the 1984 Ethiopia famine – now widely referred to as “the CNN effect” – has repeatedly massaged international opinion and prompted response to staggering levels.  In some emergencies, such as Biafra, however, relief agencies have used their in-country “expertise” to influence media coverage by championing one party over another.  In other crises, such as Kosovo-Metohija, relief agencies allowed a partisan media to compromise their impartiality by swaying them to act on behalf of only one group of victims.  However, the media’s extensive coverage of human suffering during the last twenty years has resulted in more than just increased commercial patronage of broadcast media and unprecedented levels of public charity; it has unknowingly putrefied the core of humanitarian action’s principles.

Even though television broadcast is the least introspective news medium, it is by far the most compelling since graphic images create immediate and lasting opinions. As such, the belief that the media do not pass judgement during an emergency is a naïve notion, at best.  Although the media claim to report without prejudice, the selection of which graphic images are broadcast is a de facto political statement by establishing an emotional link between the viewer and the victims. Although graphic images of famine victims or distraught refugees may speak for themselves, biased reporting provides relief organisations with the necessary impetus to initiate (impulsive) fundraising activities and to lobby governments for operating funds (e.g., Ethiopia 1984). The intense media attention given to the plight of Iraqi Kurds in 1991, for example, grossly overshadowed the immense human suffering caused during Liberia’s civil war.  Indeed, the publicity afforded to the Kurds devastated the (United Kingdom’s) Disaster Emergency Committee’s ability to raise funds through an emergency appeal for the estimated 20 million potential famine victims in Africa. [38]

Michael Ignatieff has elaborated on the risks relief agencies face when advocating an impulsive response: “…[S]ome agencies have tried to harmonise both public and private storytelling…There are risks of this outspokenness…that agencies themselves become more enamoured of the politics of moral gesture than of reaching…victims themselves.” [39]   Not only can the agencies’ impartiality and neutrality be jeopardised, but they can expedite the creation of a false emergency.

Further, intensive media coverage can perpetuate a feeding frenzy among relief agencies determined to secure funding for their activities, often at the expense of their stated humanitarian principles. [40] This phenomenon sometimes leads to what Alex de Waal somewhat pessimistically describes as  ‘Humanitarian Gresham’s Law’: “The agency most determined to get the highest media profile obtains the most funds from donors…[In] doing so, it prioritises the requirements of fund-raising…follows the TV cameras…engages in picturesque and emotive programmes [and] abandons scruples about when to go in and when to leave […] Agencies that are more thoughtful…fail to obtain the same level of public attention, and suffer for it.” [41]

Despite the media’s shortcomings, they may only influence where and when relief agencies respond; they cannot be blamed for relief agencies’ unprincipled conduct. As Ignatieff has made clear, the agencies themselves must act responsibly in determining not only the legitimacy of a crisis, but must also ensure the integrity of their response: “…if aid agencies refuse to tell a political story…they risk falling back on a narrative of simple victimhood, empty of context and meaning.  This dis-empowers the agencies when they appeal to governments and ordinary people for support…The pure humanitarian narrative preserves neutrality, and with it the agencies’ autonomy and capacity to act. A political narrative commits the agency to a point of view that compromises it credibility with the group it has accused.” [42]

CONCLUSION

Three primary factors have obfuscated fundamental humanitarian action: (1) the decline of State sovereignty and the consequential proliferation of third-party military interventions (‘military operations other than war’ in failed states that are promoted as ‘humanitarian’); (2) changes in the nature of conflict itself (especially the direct targeting of civilians); and (3) increased protection against human rights violations (real or perceived).  In addition, the media have impacted each of these trends, particularly the third, by swaying public opinion and donor support by manipulating facts and misrepresenting historical contexts. 

Because a military intervention is more likely to overtly favour one party over another, it is more vulnerable to moral debates related to neutrality. However, donors and relief agencies sometimes find themselves in the midst of a self-induced conundrum regarding their neutrality: how to justify the provision of assistance to one group (of non-combatants) championed by the media over another, even though their needs are comparable?  This has become a taxing exercise for many relief agencies, especially given the increased military influence in humanitarian relief activities. Consequently, private relief agencies often have less appreciation for neutrality because they have become dependent on the military’s role in securing humanitarian space (without which they can be immobilised).

While the debate continues about the need for – or legality of – military interventions on ‘humanitarian’ grounds, the use of highly publicised ‘life-saving’ food airdrops from military aircraft, the deployment of ‘peacekeeping’ units, and other military initiatives of questionable motivation will continue to erode respect for humanitarian principles. The desire for immediate results, often manifested through military intervention, causes deontological beliefs to shape donors’ and relief agencies’ responses.  As a result, impartiality, neutrality and even independence are often sacrificed in favour of short-lived benefits that are little more than Phyrric victories.

In contrast, activities motivated by teleological perspectives can minimise negative repercussions in tenuous situations, such as Biafra. For example, in 1969 the ICRC decided to cease activities in Nigeria after the Government shot down one of its cargo planes after being mistaken for a Biafran aircraft.  Rather than abandon its impartial and neutral positions by supporting only the Biafran cause or publicly denouncing the Nigerian Government, the ICRC decided to cease its activities and withdraw from the country.

Because CPEs are often misidentified as CHEs, humanitarian action serves as a substitute for the political solutions needed to redress root causes.  As such, military intervention is sold to the public as ‘humanitarian’ in order to justify intervention when a true humanitarian crisis has either never existed or has been on-going for years (but has lost the media’s attention, such as in Afghanistan, 1995-2001). In addition, the identification of target beneficiaries and their needs have become the subject of increasingly vigorous debate, thereby creating speculation among the belligerents that donors and relief agencies are inherently partial in their response, or for their lack of response.  The ICRC’s Dr. Peter Fuchs has cautioned against these trends by saying: “…it is even more important to avoid the growing tendency to label any political and military intervention as ‘humanitarian’, so that real humanitarian action, which must remain independent, neutral and impartial, is not dangerously weakened still further.” [43]

As human rights have moved to the forefront of many relief agendas, the media’s identification of victims (perceived or real) has encouraged humanitarian agencies to become more aggressive not only in providing assistance (e.g., cooperating with the military to achieve objectives), but also in making public statements. As such, some agencies, such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), have begun to overtly challenge the principle of neutrality by assuming a ‘witness’ role based on the belief that it is irresponsible, if not inhumane, to ignore gross human rights violations.  In part, MSF’s ‘rebellious humanitarianism’ evolved because: “…relief operations [have] become a pawn in a power game that is perilous for humanitarianism…[As such] humanitarian organisations [are] prey to the weaknesses and failures of the entire system [and] lose their neutral status in the eyes of whichever warring party has rejected the peace.” [44]   This position reflects the growing frustrations among some relief agencies, and perhaps donors, with limits they perceive to be placed on their action by the concept of neutrality.  However, once an agency publicly denounces one party over another, it assumes a political – and therefore non-humanitarian – role.

While it may be true that public denouncements of gross human rights violations can result in life-saving interventions, they can also unintentionally deprive victims of assistance, as was the case in Ethiopia in the mid-1980s when MSF was expelled for being too vocal against the Government’s resettlement policies. Agencies that choose to publicly denounce one party of a conflict tacitly support the other party and must be prepared to accept that their statements may not only result in the obstruction or confiscation of their assistance, but also possibly in even harsher human rights violations as a punitive retribution. In both scenarios, the intended beneficiaries suffer.

In those instances when agencies feel compelled to publicly denounce human rights violations, humanitarian assistance becomes a political tool unto itself and bolsters the use of humanitarian action as a substitute for political action, especially in the eyes of the belligerents.  Although human rights violations should be aggressively denounced, humanitarian agencies must adhere to their principles and register their complaints with those who are either in a position to make such statements without prejudice, such as the multitude of human rights watchdogs, or to use external political clout to intervene. Although this scenario does not guarantee a resolution or cessation of human rights abuses, it is more likely to foster an environment in which relief agencies will be permitted to provide humanitarian assistance to those in need until a durable solution can be achieved.       

While impartiality, neutrality and independence are essential concepts upon which humanitarian actions must be based, additional governing principles have been proposed in the post-Cold War era. Several efforts have been made to establish frameworks to clarify relief agencies’ professional and moral obligations during an emergency, as well as their accountability. Not surprisingly, however, these have largely failed to attract unequivocal acceptance. As Larry Minear and Thomas Weiss prefaced the presentation of one early framework, the Providence Principles: “…Differences do and will exist: in the interpretation of particular principles, in the importance of some principles relative to others, and in the extent to which a given principle or principles will prevail in a given situation.” [45]

Three other operating frameworks that have influenced donors and humanitarian agencies are the Red Cross Movement’s Code of Conduct, the Sphere project’s Humanitarian Charter and the Humanitarian Ombudsman Project. However, each enjoys only marginal respect largely because they are self-policing.  In the absence of a single (and legal) body capable of sanctioning operational or fiscal misconduct among relief agencies, there are few incentives for agencies to uphold the principles to which they have ascribed.

While no single doctrine can claim moral exclusivity, the Code of Conduct is the de facto standard to which all relief should aspire.  However, although many relief agencies are signatories, few can truly be said to actively abide by its guidelines.  Relief agencies are quick to forget their obligations of impartiality and neutrality when the media is near, emotions are high and donations are mounting.  That the vast majority of relief agencies in Kosovo-Metohija have deliberately chosen not to assist the minority Serb and Roma populations – out of fear of reprisals by the local community and their own staff – is a testament to the prevailing ignorance about the Code of Conduct’s purpose.

Clearly there is no way of obliging signatories to consistently uphold their commitment to the Code of Conduct. Regrettably, the Red Cross Movement frequently finds that it alone adheres to a standard by which few other agencies can or will abide: “short-sighted and inappropriate work…[and] activities which accept the easy and high media-profile tasks of relief but leave for others the less appealing and more difficult ones…”. [46]

Although the Sphere project’s Humanitarian Charter endeavours to “…achieve defined levels of service for people affected by calamity or armed conflict, and to promote the observance of fundamental humanitarian principles….”, it also expressly acknowledges that: “This commitment is based on agencies' appreciation of their own ethical obligations…”.  The Ombudsman for Humanitarian Assistance was created to address an accountability gap within the relief community.  At the outset, the Ombudsman recognised that “…while non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have to respond to a wide range of interested bodies to whom they are accountable in some way, the current system is in no way accountable directly to beneficiaries or ‘claimants’ – the very people it purports to assist.”  However, the Ombudsman has been hobbled by the lack of clear incentives and benefits for those agencies that comply (as well as the inability to sanction agencies that do not comply) and, above all, its lack of legal standing.

The declining adherence to the core principles of humanitarian aid is the result of numerous influences, including an uninformed media, misguided donors, the UN and, of course, humanitarian aid organisations themselves.  Frameworks notwithstanding, relief agencies that reject the impregnable principles of impartiality, neutrality and independence invalidate their own legitimacy as humanitarians.   Because the reckless provision of humanitarian assistance can perpetuate the spread of conflict – as in Somalia, Sudan, and, more recently, Afghanistan – these principles must guide the provision – or withholding – of assistance. Where they are absent, humanitarian action is self-serving, hollow and illegitimate.

End Notes