Humanitarianism has to keep pace with the changing political climate

A Palestinian girl waits for her falafel to be prepared at the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on April 28. AFP

A paradox of our time is that never have humanitarians been so busy, and yet so vilified, because they fail to mitigate suffering from crises outside their control, especially intensifying wars and disasters. Another corollary of our disturbed world is that although conflicts such as those in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, Myanmar, Congo, and Haiti, have diverse causes, their impacts are singularly standardised. Thus, as diplomatic, military, economic and development efforts retreat in the face of geopolitical rancour, humanitarians and beneficiaries get thrust into the frontlines of violence. They receive little quarter and perish from neglect and cruelty in record numbers.

Yet, humanitarians persist despite increasing obstacles such as aid cuts, access restrictions and sundry dangers. Doing more of the same to achieve less and less is not sustainable. Worse, it disrespects, distorts and risks destroying the humanitarian ideal.

A man shows signs of despair holding his head inside a tent in a temporary shelter after heavy rains affected the city of Port-au-Prince on April 13. AFP

That ideal rests on a framework of principles. Seven fundamental humanitarian principles were first proclaimed by the International Red Cross Red Crescent in 1965. Four of them – humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence – were adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1991 and 2004. They provide universal guidance for humanitarian action, including through a code of conduct signed by hundreds of organisations.

The apparent global consensus is laudable but obscures a foundational myth that all people believe in the same humanitarian idea. While mercy and compassion are common to all faiths, their varied doctrinal texts indicate a nuanced logic.

Humanitarianism arose as a byproduct of war with self-preservation as important a driver as altruistic concern for others. That happened when spiritual leaders realised that human survival required curbing the propensity for violence through regulating the use of force. This was ultimately codified in the Geneva Conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In practice, humanitarian space continues to shrink

Meanwhile, evolutionary science suggests that our instinct to help another in distress is hard-wired through realising that mutual aid benefits species survival. Although helping the needy is required in all faiths, it has to be incentivising by reward: salvation for our own souls.

In short, unlike the idealistic – almost mystical – belief in humanitarianism as unconditional and selfless assistance, it is also a rational tool for advancing self-interest. Thus, humanitarian benevolence gets clouded by ambiguity.

There is nothing wrong in that if the competition between selfishness and selflessness – raging perpetually within our psyche – generates net overall benefit through better human conduct and reduced suffering. However, the absolutism that dictates modern humanitarian principles creates challenges.

The established “humanity” principle overarches all humanitarian endeavour. It calls for preventing and alleviating all suffering everywhere while ensuring respect for every human being, regardless of their actions. This is nobly intended but bound to disappoint.

First, because limited resources inevitably mean selecting who and how much to help. That breeds resentment among the ignored. Second, glaring gaps in accountability mean that preventing suffering caused by egregious misbehaviours is largely un-addressed. For example, for war criminals who torture and rape, or criminals profiteering from enslavement, human trafficking, or drug-peddling that accompany many crises.

Therefore, it may be better to nuance the utopian humanity principle through the concept of “rectification” that makes it a primary humanitarian duty to correct wrongs against human dignity. Not least because humans have a basic thirst to be treated right, thereby fostering the moral empathy and social bonding central to the humanitarian enterprise.

The second principle of “impartiality” directs assistance to be guided solely by needs with priority to the most urgently distressed. In practical terms, this triggers the minimisation of humanitarian succour. Necessitating, for example, inflicting pain equitably through cutting food rations or vaccine availability when resources are constrained. It also discourages the positive discrimination necessary to rectify human indignities by ignoring the precept that people do not live by bread alone. Because aid is always too little, and often too late, people are aggrieved when humanitarian efforts fall short.

So, the impartiality principle could be modified towards a new concept of “maximisation”. That moves away from unsuccessfully trying to help everyone everywhere towards doing the most by deliberate selection. This aligns with our dominant social mood where good people wish to select the causes that mean most to them, whether that is Gaza’s suffering, climate change’s dispossessed, Afghanistan’s oppressed females, or traumatised Rohingya refugees. Encouraging greater personal agency to decide who to help – as opposed to enforcing a utopian universalism – is more likely to increase the global sum of humanitarian goodness.

The third principle of “neutrality” requires avoiding sides in hostilities or controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature. Neutrality is often misunderstood when reduced to the mantra of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak not of evil” even when it is being committed all around us and causes most suffering.

The neutrality notion does not arise from moral considerations but is a utilitarian concern with safety and access for humanitarians. In practice, the humanitarian space continues to shrink, with or without neutrality. The coyness of humanitarians to speak against evil deeds but not against evil doers encourages impunity.

Considering the diversity of countless humanitarian groups, especially those in solidarity with the suffering of their own people – whether in Palestine, Sudan, Ethiopia or elsewhere – it is inhuman and impractical to impose a one-size-fit-all neutrality dictat. And so, this is widely ignored, seeding general mistrust of humanitarians.

Therefore, the by-passed neutrality principle should be substituted by a new “witnessing” concept that explicitly licences humanitarians to record and speak up against abuse, exploitation prejudice and inequity, campaign openly against those responsible for such woes and co-operate fully with justice-seeking mechanisms.

That honours the strong desire of victims not to perish in silence, their wrongs forgotten. It connects human rights and humanitarianism as two sides of the same coin, rather than perpetuating false distinction between them. Of course, that means greater restrictions and risks for humanitarians – but that is already happening.

The fourth principle of “independence” asserts that humanitarian action must be autonomous from political, economic, military or other objectives. That is unrealistic. Nearly all humanitarian agencies rely on external funding and those who pay the piper generally call the tune.

But this is not transparent for public perception and creates problems of trust, especially in authoritarian jurisdictions where humanitarians are obliged to rely on conditions imposed in return for permission to operate. A further critique is that independent humanitarian action sustains – not solves – crises by consolidating the status quo and creating toxic dependencies.

It is better to recognise such realities by replacing the independence principle by a new concept of “synergy”, requiring humanitarian action to cohere with parallel political, security and development interventions that foster sustainable solutions. This will discourage lazy or incapable duty-bearers in other sectors from free-loading on humanitarians.

In summary, the 60-year-old established humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence have been overtaken by a much-changed world. They can remain as norms or ideals but their leverage to bring good reduces by the day.

Therefore, re-interpreting them through practical concepts of rectification, maximisation, witnessing and synergy is still within the spirit of ingrained human values of compassion while recognising the different aspirations and expectations of our age.

At its core is a notion that humanitarianism is not just about applying salve on wounds but mounting active resistance through refusing to let people perish in silent neglect. That is not radical but reverts to older activism exemplified by Henry Dunant in Europe, Mahatma Gandhi in Asia, Abraham Lincoln in America, Desmond Tutu in Africa and Sheikh Zayed, the UAE’s Founding Father, in the Arab world.

The crucial argument for reforming humanitarian dogma is that it retards us from doing more to prevent and relieve suffering, while needs multiply. Liberation from those constraints could unleash humanitarianism in greater, stronger and more varied forms to better serve humanity.