War and humanitarianism, medicine and public health, rights and justice... Discover CRASH publications sorted by themes.
The fact that CRASH publications are written from an aid practitioner's, rather than researcher's, perspective, does not exempt them from the demands of rigorous research methods. We try hard at this, with the help of (volunteer) research professionals. The publications are not the MSF party line, but rather tools for reflexion based on MSF's framework and experience. They have only one purpose: to help us better understand what we are doing. Criticisms, comments and suggestions are more than welcome - they are expected.
Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: the MSF experience
From international NGOs to UN agencies, from donors to observers of humanitarianism, opinion is unanimous: in a context of the alleged ‘clash of civilisations’, our ‘humanitarian space’ is shrinking.
AIDS: A new pandemic leading to new medical and political practices
It seemed appropriate to assemble these texts now, at a time when the history of our AIDS missions is compelling us to formulate new goals.
40 years helping the disregarded
Rony Brauman discusses several aspects and issues related humanitarian action as well as the good reasons to wish Médecins sans frontières a happy 40th anniversary.
Medical Innovations in Humanitarian Situations
Medical Innovations in Humanitarian Situations explores how the particular style of humanitarian action practiced by MSF has stayed in line with the standards in scientifically advanced countries while also leading to significant improvements in the medical care delivered to people in crisis.
Famine in Somalia : warning against the warning!
In the context of emergency appeals in the Horn of Africa, Rony Brauman recalls the contemporary definition of a famine. While recognising the progress made in major crisis response mechanisms, he questions the alarmist attitude of the UN.
Is humanitarian water safe to drink?
Four hepatitis E epidemics have occurred in the areas in which we operate since 2000, prompting a reflection on the quality of the water produced and distributed to their populations by humanitarian organisations.
Criminalising the enemy and its impact on humanitarian action
Could a doctor working for a humanitarian organisation be sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States for having offered his “expert advice” to people linked to a “terrorist organisation”? That is what is feared by a number of civil rights’ organisations in the US since the Supreme Court declared on 21 June that the legislation known as the Material Support Statute was constitutional.
Darfur: the International Criminal Court is wrong
Rony Brauman criticises the International Criminal Court's indictment of the Sudanese president for genocide. If the prosecutor's argument is followed, humanitarian organisations working in the displaced people's camps should be charged with complicity in genocide.
"Not in our name": Why Medecins sans frontières does not support the "responsability to protect"
Argued in the 1990s in the name of the "right or duty to intervene", the application of military might to rescue populations in danger is now debated with reference to the "Responsibility to Protect" paradigm (or "R2P" for those in the know). In this article Fabrice Weissman explains why MSF refuses to adhere to this doctrine of ‘just war', whose legalisation would effectively be legalising a new form of imperialism.