IRIN Web Special on Civilian Protection in Armed Conflict

Q. You mention that few armed groups are anarchic but some appear to be motivated more by economic profiteering than political goals. Is there a particular policy challenge in dealing with such elements?

A. Certainly there is. Relief agencies and the assets they bring with them become part of the political economy of war. Agencies have become much more aware of this, but they cannot avoid it - nor should they necessarily be expected to.

The Sphere Charter states the limits of responsibility quite clearly. Agencies have to take all reasonable steps to minimise the potential adverse consequences of their interventions. [see www.sphereproject.org]

Part of that is about identifying the chain of command, knowing who it is you're dealing with, the extent to which, if somebody promises you, they can and will actually deliver - in ways that you're much more likely to be sure of in dealing with a state military force. It's partly, in that sense, knowing who you're dealing with and what their status is.

It's also true that parties like that exist outside any effective political structures or, often, social structures.

Where you're dealing, for example, with a warlord in Afghanistan, and although that creates all sorts of problems for aid agencies, you know by and large what that person's constituency is, you know roughly speaking what the extent of his authority is, so you're rarely dealing with wholly anarchic situations.

But of course that may make it no easier to be able to know how to conduct yourself in situations of that kind. And you are likely to have no recourse to any other point in any political structure through which to raise concerns or make complaints.

There is no accountability with people of this kind [profiteering or anarchic] so, yes, I think it creates fundamental problems.

Q. Speaking of accountability, is this important for humanitarian agencies themselves and is it covered under humanitarian principles, deriving from IHL?

A. I think it's very important. One of the things that the Sphere project [that devised a humanitarian charter and minimum standards for disaster response] tried to do was locate this notion of accountability much more centrally in the humanitarian endeavour.
[see www.sphereproject.org]

You have to ask, of course, accountability to whom and for what? And there are all sorts of questions about the extent to which humanitarian agencies are, or can be, accountable to those they are actually seeking to assist. And there are various initiatives going on to try to explore how that form of accountability might be strengthened.

But there are also other forms of accountability: there's accountability to those who provide the resources for humanitarian action; there's accountability to the community at large for the way in which an aid agency conducts itself.

In that area, how one agency conducts itself is not unrelated to the general environment for other agencies and I think there's something [more to be explored] about accountability within the humanitarian system.

On the question of principles, the Sphere Charter taken together with the Red Cross/NGO code of conduct, I think provides a pretty good statement of the range of relevant, applicable principles.

At the moment, this is a voluntary code and there's a case for saying that we should be moving towards something that looks more like what would exist in any other kind of professional body which is a code which is not only voluntarily adopted but where compliance with that code is monitored, and that there are some sanctions for failing to adhere to it.

I think that will come. I think we're quite a long way from it at the moment and part of the reason for that is because of where these agencies are coming from, the very different nature of their mandates, the enormous range of variables that they will point to in their ability perform and no real barriers to entry.

The only effective barrier, I suppose, is the ability to raise funds and there's an important question as to the extent to which donors consider an agency's ability to demonstrate accountability as a key criterion for funding. It's highly questionable at the moment whether they do.

Of course, accountability for impact is something that everyone is struggling to demonstrate anyway, so what we're talking about is more a matter of accountability for how you conduct yourself, which can be critically important.

I think we're moving along those lines, but we're moving very slowly. I'm not sure we will ever get to a point where you see anything like the kind of fully worked-through professional code that exists in other areas but I think we will - and should, probably - go further down that line than we are at the moment.

Q. Are you concerned that the case for policy coherence in complex emergencies presents a danger to humanitarian agencies' neutrality, impartiality and independence?

A. Yes, I believe it does, at least if interpreted in a certain way.

First of all, let's be clear that I think we would all agree that there's a case for a far greater level of coordination of action within the humanitarian sphere. I don't think that's in dispute.

As far as policy coherence is concerned, it rather depends what policies you're talking about. There's been a tendency to expand the humanitarian agenda - that is to say to, introduce objectives into the humanitarian programme - that don't look like humanitarian objectives per se.

Those might be about conflict prevention, for example. Now while there are obvious links between conflict prevention and humanitarianism, they are quite distinct. In fact, humanitarian action is premised on the idea that violent conflict can and does happen. And the Geneva Conventions have nothing to say about the merits or otherwise of conflict.

There are other policy agendas that are to do with human rights, governance and other matters that may fall within the legitimate interest of the UN, for example, whose relation to humanitarianism is by no means straightforward.

And it's within the UN, I think, that these dilemmas become most noticeably acute. I think if you look at the integrated missions - the Afghan one, for instance - you see some of these dilemmas played out in practice.

We believe that there are essential links between the humanitarian agenda and what falls outside it - most obviously the political. For example, in order to meet humanitarian protection ends, it may be important - critical, indeed - that certain forms of political action are taken. And ultimately that might include armed intervention.

Now humanitarians are divided as to whether or not there is such a thing as 'humanitarian armed intervention'. But there is at least a case to made for saying that, in certain circumstances, in order to achieve the aims that we believe to be necessary, to secure humanitarian principles, you may need to make certain sorts of decisions about armed intervention - as the Responsibility to Protect document stipulates.

[document at www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/iciss-ciise]

It sets a high threshold and a number of criteria for intervention derived from just war theory. It is restricted to events like genocide, mass killing or ethnic cleansing.

But that's more about recognising, if you like, the limits of the humanitarian project and saying there is a certain point at which what the humanitarian system can deliver stops and where other forms of action are absolutely necessary.

So, we see the need for coherence in the sense that there are certain forms of political action that are absolutely, intrinsically connected to humanitarian outcomes.

What's much more worrying is the attempt to use the humanitarian vehicle in an attempt to achieve outcomes that it was never designed to achieve, probably never could - and, in doing so, threatening basic principles like neutrality.

Conflict prevention is perhaps the most striking example of this. In the current climate, there are concerns that the humanitarian agenda will be co-opted by (and subordinated to) the global security agenda in the 'war against terror', and related geopolitical strategies.

Continued?