Humanitarian Exchange articles tagged:Codes of conduct

Once there was a fairy-tale image of the brave and noble humanitarian, who would storm into conflict zones – armed only with vaccines and sacks of food – and indiscriminately save lives, having no other impact that a strictly humanitarian one. In the mid-1990s, that image was shattered. Strikingly common-sensical, Mary Anderson laid out the idea of Do No Harm, based on the realisation that humanitarian assistance takes place within a political context, and that so-called humanitarians, in their eagerness to do good, risked exacerbating tensions and deepening conflicts. Of course, this insight was not new. As long as there…

This article examines the increased presence and expanded role beyond security of state armed forces in crisis situations. In particular, there seems to be a trend towards armed forces undertaking relief and recovery work in armed conflict and natural disasters. The role of military forces in providing assistance is most controversial in armed conflicts, where they are or may become parties to the conflict. In these circumstances, humanitarian agencies recommend that assistance should primarily be left to civilians, to avoid blurring the line between humanitarian actors and armed actors, eroding humanitarian principles and exposing humanitarian agencies to greater security risks.…

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. It is also the fortieth year of continuous presence of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in this context, with an unchanged mandate based in international humanitarian law (IHL). The year 2007 is also distinctive because of the unprecedented level of resources the ICRC has brought to bear. The operation in Israel and the occupied territories is the second largest in the world after Darfur, reflecting the exceptional needs of the people there after four decades of occupation. Long-term presence ‘Aware of the increasing tension…

Tropical Storm Jeanne struck Haiti on 18 and 19 September 2004, unleashing torrential rains resulting in landslides and flooding that killed 3,000 people and left many more homeless. Gonaives, the country’s third-largest city with a population of 200,000, was worst hit. Flood waters inundated the city and made the primary road to the capital, Port-au-Prince, impassable. This was without doubt a devastating disaster. But it was underpinned by a complex social, environmental and political crisis, exemplified by the controversial ousting of President Jean Bertrand Aristide the previous February.   The immediate response CARE was the largest aid organisation in Gonaives,…

CARE International has been a key partner of the World Food Programme (WFP) since the outbreak of Burundi’s civil war in 1993, distributing emergency food aid to refugees, returnees, internally displaced persons, female-headed households, orphans and other vulnerable people in 16 of Burundi’s 17 provinces. In 2005, CARE distributed over 31,000 tons of food to over 800,000 beneficiaries. As the security situation in the country has improved, the programme has moved from generalised emergency feeding to semi-regular ‘targeted distributions’. WFP and the government allocate food resources based on agricultural production and food security data (collected on a quarterly basis with…

The long-running conflict in northern Uganda between the government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is often considered one of Africa’s forgotten humanitarian catastrophes. During the past two years, the profile of the war has been raised, both politically – especially with the involvement of the International Criminal Court – and in humanitarian terms, with a (long overdue) increase in presence and commitment from the international community. Yet one aspect of the crisis continues to escape discussion and attention. One hears talk of ‘rights’, ‘the law’ and ‘justice’ in relation to the situation of internally displaced people in the north,…

The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have again called into question the concept of occupation. During the 1990s, military interventions under UN mandates generated much debate among lawyers, military planners and humanitarian agencies as to the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and specifically its provisions on occupation. These debates, and the operational difficulties aid agencies faced in these situations, revealed a significant lack of consensus, and a dearth of satisfactory answers. Do situations of occupation create specific problems and constraints for aid agencies? Are these problems connected to issues of responsibilities, operational modes or perceptions by the actors of…

The pages of Humanitarian Exchange and Disasters bear witness to the fact that the interaction between international military forces and aid workers has become a subject of great fascination. Amid the heated discussions of the issue, however, little attention has been paid to how local communities and vulnerable populations perceive their own security and survival prospects. These perceptions are the subject of recently concluded research contrasting local views of peace and security with the views of foreign troops and aid agencies. This article highlights the findings of the research, examines its reception to date and explores its implications for future…

Before the International Criminal Court (ICC) became a reality in 2002, most humanitarian workers thought it was a good thing. Many humanitarian organisations called for an end to the impunity enjoyed by the people who cause the misery that humanitarian workers try to alleviate, and some joined formal campaigns for the establishment of the ICC. There was what seemed an obvious commonality of interest between those campaigning for justice and those trying to supply food, shelter and medical care to the victims of violence and armed conflict. The court does indeed have the potential to benefit the people humanitarians try…

The enemy, our real enemy, is not the neighbouring nation; it is hunger, cold, poverty, ignorance, routine, superstition, prejudice.Henry Dunant, L’Avenir Sanglant Fears that ‘humanitarian space’ is shrinking, particularly in integrated UN peacekeeping missions, have led the humanitarian community to call repeatedly for its preservation. Yet most debates about humanitarian space make no mention of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). This article aims to fill that gap by offering an IHL perspective on the concept of humanitarian space. It argues that it is ‘populated’ by a variety of very diverse actors. Within this diverse space, the International Committee of the Red…