Relief agencies and moral standing in war: Principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and solidarity1

Hugo Slim

Development in Practice, 1997, vol. 7, issue 4, 342-352

Abstract: The article explores the moral difficulties for international humanitarian workers operating as third parties in war zones. The main part examines current usage of the terms 'humanity', 'neutrality', 'impartiality', and 'solidarity', as they are used in the discourse of humanitarian operations. The article then considers the psychological implications for relief workers of operating as noncombatant third parties in war. Finally, the article recognises that a range of different positions is both inevitable and desirable in a given conflict, but concludes by emphasising the responsibility of any third-party relief organisation to be transparent in its position and to preserve rather than distort traditional humanitarian principles and language. It ends by recommending concerted support for international humanitarian law and its possible reform as the best way to focus the current debate about the place of humanitarianism in war.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09614529754134 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cdipxx:v:7:y:1997:i:4:p:342-352

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cdip20

DOI: 10.1080/09614529754134

Access Statistics for this article

Development in Practice is currently edited by Emily Finlay

More articles in Development in Practice from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().