Quintiliano des Santos/International Federation, Angola

Chapter 1 - summary
Humanitarian ethics in disaster and war

The humanitarian ethic is an ancient and resilient conviction that it is right to help anyone in grave danger. This deeply-held value is found in every culture and faith, as well as in the political ideology of human rights. The ideas of the ‘right to life’ and an essential ‘human dignity’ common to all people are framed in international humanitarian law (IHL), human rights conventions and the principles espoused by humanitarian organizations. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement prioritizes the principle of humanity, defined as the desire “to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found...to protect life and health and to ensure respect for the human being”. Impartiality affirms that aid will be based on need alone.

To apply the humanitarian ethic during crises, humanitarians have two operating principles – neutrality and independence. By affirming their disinterest in the politics of war or disaster, humanitarians hope to gain access to all those in need. But they will still face profound moral challenges. In war, civilians may be deliberately targeted. In disasters, marginal groups may be denied aid. In famines, starvation may be used as a weapon. The search for peace may be prioritized over life-saving aid; relief may be made conditional on suitable political outcomes; human rights concerns may be shelved in the interests of political stability.

Five particular moral hazards are worth considering: complicity in abuses (feeding refugees may help armed factions regroup); legitimizing violations (prioritizing aid over investigating rights violations may encourage a climate of impunity); aid’s negative effect (too much aid may undermine local markets or depopulate areas); targeting and triage (the most needy may be left to die if others can be more effectively helped); advocacy or access (condemning abuses can mean agencies are expelled).

Advocacy is vital to remind all actors of their humanitarian obligations. It can be quiet, private discussion or louder, public criticism. Advocacy is often pursued more vigorously by local organizations than their foreign counterparts in-country. Advocacy brings risks: getting it wrong (in a fast moving, complex emergency, getting facts wrong is easy, but threatens agencies’ credibility); creating a backlash (going public about atrocities puts local people at risk and agencies may be expelled); violating humanitarian principles (speaking out disproportionately for one group may mean an agency loses its impartiality).

One major ethical concern is the selectivity of emergency aid. Relief peaked at US$ 5.9 billion in 2000, but its global distribution reveals a political rather than moral geography. In 2000, the northern Caucasus received 89 per cent of its UN appeal, Somalia only 22 per cent. Aid per affected person varied from US$ 10 for Uganda to US$ 185 in south-eastern Europe. Within weeks of the fall of Saddam, US $ 1.7 billion had been raised in relief for Iraq, while less than half that had been pledged for 40 million starving Africans. HIV/AIDS killed 2.4 million Africans last year, but the funding needed to combat HIV/AIDS in poor countries this year is twice the amount pledged for the pandemic last year. Meanwhile, research suggests that humanitarian organizations base their funding requests less on evidence of objective need than on what they think the donor ‘market’ will bear.

Should humanitarian action stop at saving lives or aim to secure wider social goods? The Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief characterizes the humanitarian imperative (immediate relief of suffering) as the priority, while the subsequent principles of impartiality, non-political action and independence help ensure this can be achieved. But the Code also commits its signatories to respect culture, build local capacities, encourage participation, reduce vulnerabilities and be fully accountable. This is much more ambitious than simply alleviating suffering.

But deeper engagement with people’s lives brings moral risks. During conflicts, encouraging participation may mean negotiating with armed groups, which puts agencies’ neutrality or independence at risk. In natural disasters, addressing vulnerability can mean addressing land rights and political exclusion – again, threatening neutrality. Agencies also risk promising local people more than they can deliver.

This tension in the Code, between immediate and longer-term ambitions, has prompted many to become either minimalists (prioritizing life-saving over everything else) or maximalists (prioritizing developmental relief). But it seems wiser to accept the full spectrum of humanitarian obligations and judge how much of it can safely and usefully be done. Such humanitarian judgement balances an accurate people-centred assessment of conditions with an ethical and legal analysis of humanitarian responsibility, and then gauges what is possible given the context and resources available.

While relieving suffering has definite primacy, the ethic of respect, inclusion and empowerment is fundamental both as an end in itself and because working with people relieves their suffering far better than a detached, authoritarian approach.

Ethical humanitarian work is not only about what you intend to do but how well you do it and to whom you are responsible. Yet accountability in the field remains under-developed and under-resourced. Organizations do not use their own principles as a measure of self-evaluation. Being accountable, and proving your essential moral values through your practical performance, is critical to an agency’s legitimacy. It’s about being trusted.

Professionalism is not everything. Spontaneous solidarity – disaster-affected people coming to each other’s aid – is vital. Following 1999's Turkish earthquakes, 98 per cent of the 50,000 people pulled alive from the rubble were rescued by locals. The humanitarian profession needs both individual activism and organizational expertise.

Businesspeople and soldiers are increasingly involved in humanitarian work – but can they work in accordance with humanitarian principles? Soldiers are often poor at targeting aid, and may not use it to alleviate the suffering of the most needy. Meanwhile, blurring the distinction between soldiers and civilians has compromised the neutrality and security of humanitarian workers. However, international humanitarian law demands serious humanitarian obligations on all military forces as belligerents, occupiers or peacekeepers. Although aid agencies are wise to be alert to conflicts of interest, they should also encourage humanitarian responsibility and compassion in all military forces – vital if the principles of civilian protection and proportional force are to be respected.

In conclusion, aid is becoming dangerously politicized. Millions of the world's most vulnerable remain beyond the reach of humanitarian assistance and protection. Saving lives alone is not sufficient. Respecting people's dignity and livelihoods is equally important. Humanitarian organizations bear two special responsibilities:

• Operationalize humanitarian principles: build principles into all assessments; conduct real-time impact assessments to inform decisions; develop field indicators to put principles into practice; disseminate good practice in humanitarian judgement.
• Advocate principles to other actors: support local associations which make a stand for principles; build consensus in the field to operationalize principles; hold aid budgets to account on the basis of global impartiality; invite donors, UN, host governments, development actors, private sector and civil/military units to sign up to the Code of Conduct.

Hugo Slim, of Oxford Brookes University, UK, and Chief Scholar at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (Geneva, Switzerland), was principal contributor to this chapter. Jonathan Walter, editor of the World Disasters Report, wrote the box.