Rebellious Humanitarianism

The following is taken from an excellent paper entitled Between Humanitarian Law and Principles: The Principles and Practices of “Rebellious Humanitarianism” by Fran�oise Bouchet-Saulnier, Director of Research at the Médecins Sans Frontières [Doctors Without Borders] Foundation.  I encourage you to read the entire paper, read their charter, and consider donating if you agree with their principles.

Humanitarian action and human rights

[The United Nations'] tendency to adopt a more global approach [toward humanitarian action] is an attempt to group humanitarian action together with peacekeeping, the restoration of democracy, and human rights.  …  However, this kind of approach blurs the nature of each organization’s responsibility.  …  Indeed, in a context in which human rights are an element of international diplomacy, giving confidential information to human rights groups might be regarded by the authorities as clandestine, suspicious and subversive.  …  With this approach … relief operations become a pawn in a power game that is perilous for humanitarianism.  …

Thus, a genuine conditionality of humanitarian aid has gradually taken hold, in the name of peace and human rights.  However, although the practice of conditionality may take refuge behind these noble objectives, it in fact violates the only absolute principle of humanitarian action: impartiality.

This principle dictates that humanitarian aid obey no other imperative than that of the needs of people, and it provides the foundation for humanitarian organizations’ right to access conflict areas.  …  Paradoxically, the most serious consequence of this approach becomes the subordination of humanitarian aid to non-humanitarian objectives.

Humanitarian law and human rights

Humanitarian law … is concerned with periods of armed conflict.  It is enshrined in four conventions signed in Geneva in 1949 and in two additional protocols of 1977.  These laws set out specific rules regarding protection and assistance to precise categories of vulnerable people (civilians, the sick and wounded, and those deprived of freedom) in situations of armed international or internal conflict.
Some NGOs see the law only as a source of constraint and limitation. Yet it is thanks to the specific provisions of humanitarian law that NGOs are able to claim independence in their actions with respect to governments; demand access to victims; assert control over the distribution of relief; enter a country’s territory without prior consent in order to bring medical relief to the wounded and the sick; and identify and denounce war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Humanitarian law does not, therefore, limit the concrete action of NGOs. On the contrary, it ensures that offers of relief made by independent and impartial humanitarian organizations may not be considered interference in a country’s internal affairs.

Rebellious humanitarianism

By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the “rebellious humanitarianism” of Médecins Sans Frontières, the Nobel Committee chose to reward the sometimes controversial choices made by MSF, which sees acting and speaking as two inseparable elements of providing relief to endangered people.

Médecins Sans Frontières does not see itself as a cog in the machinery of international solidarity, responding to medical needs like some eager hired hand summoned to deal with the failures of states or of global privatization.  …

MSF is a member of the youngest generation of humanitarian organizations. Created after the Second World War, it is among those organizations questioning the role of humanitarianism with regard to genocide. It refuses to accept that silence is a precondition for its operational freedom.  …  This attitude was reaffirmed in the words of MSF upon the award of the Nobel Peace Prize: “We don’t know whether words save lives, but we know for sure that silence kills.”