The geopolitical changes resulting from the end of the Cold War, the ‘War on Terror’ and the ‘Arab Spring’ have profoundly changed the environment in which humanitarian action takes place. These changes have triggered heated debates on ethical, analytical, programmatic, and operational issues within the humanitarian community.
Numerous humanitarian actors and agencies have emerged from the global South, alongside and outside of the traditional Western, UN-led humanitarian system. The “complex emergencies” of the 1990s and early 2000s, such as those in Rwanda, Somalia and the Balkan conflicts, have now transformed into today’s “protracted crises,” with 80% of the humanitarian budget now spent on “emergencies” lasting five years or longer. Long-held principles are being questioned or discarded, with humanitarian action no longer seen by many belligerents as either neutral or impartial. Moreover, the impacts of climate change are steadily increasing the vulnerability of populations around the world and have already aggravated these trends. This class will challenge students to consider the principles, analytical perspectives, and actions required to protect the lives, livelihoods, and human dignity of crisis-affected people. The class will also interrogate the critiques levelled against the humanitarian system, such as whether humanitarian action can under certain circumstances do more harm than good, and explore some of the ways the humanitarian system has responded to these challenges.
This class will introduce students to a broad range of research and evidence that constitutes our collective knowledge on humanitarian action in complex emergencies, key ethical and policy debates, and the practical dilemmas that surround contemporary humanitarian action.