Dilemmas Challenges And Ethics Of Humanitarian Action

A study of the perception issues and ethical dilemmas faced by humanitarian organizations.

What are the ethical issues involved in providing humanitarian aid? What is the real impact of humanitarian groups? Médecins Sans Frontières sought to answer these questions in the Perception Project, a study that spanned four years and more than ten countries. MSF interviewed close to 7,000 people in order to understand the ways that patients, populations, authorities, and communities perceive the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization's principles and medical practices. While the quality of its medical action is renowned and praised, MSF struggles with the ability to respond to crises, the safety of its teams, and the development of effective interactions with diverse populations and authorities. Dilemmas, Challenges, and Ethics of Humanitarian Action is a series of reflections on the Perception Project that presents the insights and analyses of authors from a diverse array of fields including communications, ethics, medicine, humanitarian studies, and political science. At a time when humanitarian aid is under increasing scrutiny, this book provides insiders' perspectives on how one of largest and most influential non-governmental medical organizations can better serve those in need. Contributors include Caroline Abu-Sada (MSF Switzerland), Naomi Adelson (York University) Donald C. Cole (University of Toronto), François Cooren (Université de Montréal), Sonya De Laat (McMaster University), Laurie Elit (McMaster University), Larissa Fast (University of Notre-Dame), Matthew Hunt ( McGill University), Kirsten Johnson (McGill University), Khurshida Mambetova (Former MSF Canada), Frédéric Matte (Université de Montréal), John D. Pringle (University of Toronto), Lynda Redwood-Campbell (McMaster University), Lisa Schwartz (University of McMaster), Chris Sinding (McMaster), Jennifer Ranford (University of Waterloo), Peter Walker (Feinstein International Center, Tufts University).

From natural disaster areas to conflict zones, humanitarian workers today find themselves operating in diverse and difficult environments. While humanitarian work has always presented unique ethical challenges, such efforts are now further complicated by the impact of globalization, the escalating refugee crisis, and mounting criticisms of established humanitarian practice. Featuring contributions from humanitarian practitioners, health professionals, and social and political scientists, this book explores the question of ethics in modern humanitarian work, drawing on the lived experience of humanitarian workers themselves. Its essential case studies cover humanitarian work in countries ranging from Haiti and South Sudan to Syria and Iraq, and address issues such as gender based violence, migration, and the growing phenomenon of ‘volunteer tourism’. Together, these contributions offer new perspectives on humanitarian ethics, as well as insight into how such ethical considerations might inform more effective approaches to humanitarian work.

Since Somalia, the international community has found itself changing its view of humanitarian intervention. Operations designed to alleviate suffering and achieve peace sometimes produce damaging results. The United Nations, nongovernmental organizations, military and civilian agencies alike find themselves in the midst of confusion and weakness where what they seek are clarity and stability. Competing needs, rights, and values can obscure even the best international efforts to quell violence and assuage crises of poverty. More attention must be paid to the complexity of issues and moral dilemmas involved. This volume of original essays by international policy leaders, practitioners, and scholars brings together insights into the conflicting moral pressures present in different kinds of interventions ranging from Rwanda and Somalia to Haiti, Cambodia, and Bosnia. From their various cultural and professional perspectives the authors cover issues of human rights, sanctions, arms trade, refugees, HIV, and the media. Together they make the case that, although there are no easy answers, moral reflection and content can improve the quality of decisionmaking and intervention in internal conflicts. Published under the auspices of The International Committee of the Red Cross.

Humanitarians are required to be impartial, independent, professionally competent and focused only on preventing and alleviating human suffering. It can be hard living up to these principles when others do not share them, while persuading political and military authorities and non-state actors to let an agency assist on the ground requires savvy ethical skills. Getting first to a conflict or natural catastrophe is only the beginning, as aid workers are usually and immediately presented with practical and moral questions about what to do next. For example, when does working closely with a warring party or an immoral regime move from practical cooperation to complicity in human rights violations? Should one operate in camps for displaced people and refugees if they are effectively places of internment? Do humanitarian agencies inadvertently encourage ethnic cleansing by always being ready to 'mop-up' the consequences of scorched earth warfare? This book has been written to help humanitarians assess and respond to these and other ethical dilemmas.

Years of tremendous growth in response to complex emergencies have left a mark on the humanitarian sector. Various matters that once seemed settled are now subjects of intense debate. What is humanitarianism? Is it limited to the provision of relief to victims of conflict, or does it include broader objectives such as human rights, democracy promotion, development, and peacebuilding? For much of the last century, the principles of humanitarianism were guided by neutrality, impartiality, and independence. More recently, some humanitarian organizations have begun to relax these tenets. The recognition that humanitarian action can lead to negative consequences has forced humanitarian organizations to measure their effectiveness, to reflect on their ethical positions, and to consider not only the values that motivate their actions but also the consequences of those actions. In the indispensable Humanitarianism in Question, Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines to address the humanitarian identity crisis, including humanitarianism's relationship to accountability, great powers, privatization and corporate philanthropy, warlords, and the ethical evaluations that inform life-and-death decision making during and after emergencies.

Since Somalia, the international community has found itself changing its view of humanitarian intervention. Operations designed to alleviate suffering and achieve peace sometimes produce damaging results. The United Nations, nongovernmental organizations, military and civilian agencies alike find themselves in the midst of confusion and weakness where what they seek are clarity and stability. Competing needs, rights, and values can obscure even the best international efforts to quell violence and assuage crises of poverty. More attention must be paid to the complexity of issues and moral dilemmas involved. This volume of original essays by international policy leaders, practitioners, and scholars brings together insights into the conflicting moral pressures present in different kinds of interventions ranging from Rwanda and Somalia to Haiti, Cambodia, and Bosnia. From their various cultural and professional perspectives the authors cover issues of human rights, sanctions, arms trade, refugees, HIV, and the media. Together they make the case that, although there are no easy answers, moral reflection and content can improve the quality of decisionmaking and intervention in internal conflicts. Published under the auspices of The International Committee of the Red Cross.

Humanitarian action has become a subject for serious debate in light of recent conflicts across the globe. The debacle in Somalia, the policy of intervention in Bosnia, and domestic conflicts in the West over intervention in Kosovo have given rise to many complex questions surrounding humanitarian action. The contributors to this volume provide a systematic overview of the issues involved from a wide range of viewpoints.The book examines the central problems of humanitarian action: the judicial question and the right to humanitarian assistance; the ethical framework of humanitarian action; the challenge of coordination of all the actors involved in humanitarian action; the recipients in the aid chain; the link between aid, development and emergency action; the role of the media; and a practical evaluation of Operation Lifeline Sudan.