Humanitarian Exchange articles tagged:Human rights

Who bears the responsibility to protect innocent victims of humanitarian atrocities like the Rwandan genocide? When may outsiders legitimately suspend another state’s sovereignty and use force to intervene in its internal affairs? ‘Humanitarian intervention’ was a persistent challenge throughout the 1990s, in Somalia, Rwanda, Srebrenica and East Timor. Although 9/11 and the ‘war on terrorism’ has caught the world’s attention, this challenge has not gone away, particularly in Africa. In Iraq, meanwhile, Saddam Hussein’s record of brutality was a taunting reminder of the distance yet to be traversed before we reach the goal of eradicating domestic state criminality; his ousting…

Debates about increasing accountability for humanitarian action – the ethics of what and how it is provided; who profits and who benefits – have focused on the accountability of NGOs to beneficiaries.  But other actors, states in particular, also merit scrutiny. States play major roles in determining the provision and form of humanitarian assistance: as donors, direct providers, belligerents and coordinators; and as recipients on behalf of communities in need.  States also bear prime responsibility for the well-being of their people, and are the primary duty-holders for relieving suffering in times of catastrophe.  Are states currently responsible or accountable in…

In Sierra Leone, rebel forces rape women and girls as spoils of war and to punish them for their perceived support of opposing forces. In Pakistan, women victims of sexual violence face serious bias if they take their cases to court: laws and those who apply them devalue women’s testimony and expose them to prosecution for illicit sex if they cannot prove rape. Not so long ago, these problems would have gone without notice. Rape in war was treated as an inevitable, if unfortunate, facet of war; women were blamed for sexual violence, and husbands were excused for beating their…

A Permanent International Criminal Court A Diplomatic Conference being held in Rome between 15 June and 17 July could result in a Convention to establish a permanent International Criminal Court. Its effectiveness will depend on the mandate, powers and resources conferred upon it and and on the cooperation of participating States. The following contributions (pages 1 to 8), highlight some of the main issues. This issue is also available in French: Échange Humanitaire No. 11

Over recent years the pages of the RRN has conveyed information and analysis on the emerging need for humanitarian assistance to be delivered to rigorous ethical as well as minimum technical standards. The need for ethical relief has become more apparent and more public with every major humanitarian crisis, reaching a peak in Goma in late 1994. It was the events in eastern Zaire, which turned the spotlight as perhaps never before on relief workers who, rather than being applauded for their humanitarian work, were accused of making things worse, of feeding the guilty, of not saving the innocent. For…

Since the launch of the RRN in 1994, there has been a slight shift in the focus of RRN material in response to some of the major changes that have taken place in the work of relief agencies over the last five years – in particular the rapid and striking expansion of the extent and scope of their involvement in complex political emergencies. The change in emphasis has to some extent been mirrored by the decline in the use of the term ‘relief’ to describe emergency assistance and greater scope implied by the term ‘humanitarian’. This shift in focus and…

On a spring day in September 1998, three non-South Africans were killed on a train travelling from Pretoria to Johannesburg. These killings were allegedly the work of South Africans blaming foreigners for the country’s high levels of unemployment. Less than two years later, on 4 August 2000, Sudanese refugee James Diop was seriously injured in a similar assault. Diop was travelling on a train from Pretoria to Pretoria North when he was attacked by a group of armed men and thrown from the train. In another incident, Roy Ndeti, a Kenyan who came to South Africa in search of better job…

The Human Rights Act 1998 came into full effect in the UK on 2 October 2000. It means that, for the first time, most of the rights in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) are directly enforceable in the UK. All public authorities (which include government departments, the police, prison and immigration services, local authorities and other bodies performing public functions) will have to ensure that their decisions comply with ECHR rights; and if they do not, they can be challenged in any UK court or tribunal. New laws will have to be examined to see whether they comply…

International NGOs have failed to protect the people they are trying to help in complex emergencies. The old idea of aid without protection is no longer adequate, or justifiable. International NGOs are well-placed to protect: they are in the field, close to the affected population. Moreover, they have an undoubted capacity for advocacy before governments and other bodies. These strategic advantages bring moral responsibilities, and international NGOs cannot ignore human-rights violations affecting the people they are trying to help. Although no international conventions compel international NGOs to provide protection, the universal responsibility for promoting and protecting human rights, together with their…

The International Human Rights Law Group’s Women’s Rights Advocacy Project has just published a national report on women’s human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The following is based on the Introduction to this report. BiH is party to the Women’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (the Women’s Convention) by virtue of having signed the Dayton Peace Agreement. In addition, the Federation Constitution (in its Annex) directly incorporates the Women’s Convention among a list of 21 international documents similarly incorporated into Federation Law. As part of its obligations as a signatory to the Women’s…