Little Room to Maneuver: The Challenges to Humanitarian Action in the New Global Security Environment

Abby Stoddard and Adele Harmer

Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 2006, vol. 7, issue 1, 23-41

Abstract: The current global politico-security environment poses challenges to principled humanitarian action on three levels. Humanitarian actors are at pains to preserve a neutral stance in contested political environments, specifically those of occupation and counter-insurgency operations within the US-led Global War on Terror — a particularly difficult proposition when the major donor for humanitarian activities is also the occupying power. Their second challenge is to maintain operational independence in environments of post-conflict transition and other contexts where the life-saving work is over and political pressure increases for all international actors to operate under a unified, politically coherent peace-building strategy. Finally, humanitarians perceive a greater threat than ever before to the physical security of their own workers, as incidents of violence against aid workers appear to be on the rise.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14649880500501146 (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:jhudca:v:7:y:2006:i:1:p:23-41

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CJHD20

DOI: 10.1080/14649880500501146

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Human Development and Capabilities is currently edited by Kathryn Rosenblum

More articles in Journal of Human Development and Capabilities from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().