Humanitarianism

Humanitarianism—the practice of caring for distant strangers—is an ethical action that is global in reach. It is distinct from many kinds of charity and philanthropy because it implies an ethical obligation, a prioritization of urgent and temporary crises, and often a deliberate depoliticization of its actors. The forms of humanitarian assistance are diverse, ranging from small nonprofit organizations providing targeted food aid in times of famine to massive state-led peacekeeping interventions into civil conflicts. To understand this network of related practices, it is necessary to understand both humanitarianism's broader history and the two interrelated challenges that define its operations in the present global era: namely, the problem of sovereignty and the tension between “classic” and “new” humanitarianism.

Humanitarian activity of all kinds, but particularly state-led militarized interventions, can be an implicit challenge and sometimes a direct threat to state sovereignty, the inviolability of which is enshrined in Article 2.4 of the charter of the United Nations (which declares that all member-states shall refrain from “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”). States and organizations sponsoring peacekeeping interventions to protect vulnerable minorities during civil conflict, for instance, must be able to justify themselves against the charge that they are violating the integrity of a state and illegally interfering in its domestic affairs. This is a perennial challenge.

The tension between “classic” and “new” humanitarianism, by contrast, is relatively new, a response to perceived failures of humanitarianism around the globe at the end of the 20th century. In its earliest institutionalized history, humanitarianism emphasized limited interventions according to the principles of independence (resisting pressure from political actors), impartiality (providing aid without discrimination to all victims), and neutrality (refusing to take sides in a conflict). Today, these principles are increasingly challenged by organizations, scholars, and fieldworkers around the world who argue that impartiality and neutrality are neither possible nor, in many cases, desirable, and who insist that long-term structural problems connected to developmental inequities (inadequate medical or educational infrastructure, for instance) can no longer be dismissed as beyond the scope of what is appropriate to an emergency intervention.