War and humanitarianism

Since the beginning of the 2000s, a number of English-language researchers have regularly asked the following question: why do international aid organisations pay so little attention to rapes of men and boys committed during armed conflicts?

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.

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.

For the past several months, news about food shortages and famines affecting large segments of the East African population have been fueling donation appeals from major public and private aid organizations.

The United Nations announces a famine and that 12.4 million people are threatened by drought in the Horn of Africa. Radio and television repeatedly broadcast an appeal for donations to UNICEF, brandishing disturbing figures.

The United Nations has again raised the question of the implication of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) - in power in Rwanda since July 1994 - in crimes committed between 1993 and 2003 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The ‘War crimes and politics of terror in Chechnya 1994-2004’ case study describes the constraints, questions and dilemmas experienced by MSF while speaking out during the two Russian-Chechen wars and the following years of ‘normalization’. 

This study started out looking at the shift to a post-conflict situation in Katanga; the intention was to describe how MSF’s sections negotiated the transition from war to post-war.

In January 2009, eight regional and national NGOs got together to create the "International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect." The photo on their website's homepage sets the tone.

Humanitarian law was designed as a normative framework, not as an indictment. With this in mind, Rony Brauman tries to define what constitutes a human shield.

With 13,000 humanitarian workers and a hundred relief agencies, Darfur hosts the largest humanitarian operation in the world. The aid apparatus started its full deployment in mid-2004 in a context of acutely high mortality among internally displaced persons (IDPs) gathered in camps and civilians remaining in rural areas. 

Fabrice Weissman is interviewed by Joanne Myers, Carnegie Council, about MSF work in Darfur. He talks about MSF humanitarian medical work, its issues and difficulties.