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The International Committee of the Red Cross and humanitarian assistance: A policy analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

David P. Forsythe
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Extract

In today's armed conflicts and complex emergencies more civilians suffer than combatants. After the Cold War one could identify a zone of turmoil in which civilian suffering was acute. But one could also identify a zone of stability from which operated a complicated system of humanitarian assistance designed to respond to civilian suffering. Media coverage emphasized the suffering, but never before in world history had such a kaleidoscope of humanitarian actors tried to provide emergency relief during armed conflicts and complex emergencies. Inevitably calls were heard for better organization and coordination, and in 1991–92 the United Nations created a Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA).

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of the Red Cross (1961 - 1997) , Volume 36 , Issue 314 , October 1996 , pp. 512 - 531
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1996

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Footnotes

1

The author would like to thank various ICRC officials who provided information for, or commented on, earlier drafts of this essay. These drafts were also read by William De Mars, Martha Finnemore, and Thomas G. Weiss. The author would moreover like to thank the editor of the International Review of the Red Cross (IRRC) for his helpful comments. The responsibility for all statements rests with the author.

References

2 According to Red Cross sources, civilians made up 15% of victims in World War I and 65% in World War II; in armed conflicts today they account for 90% (“World Campaign for the Protection of Victims of War”, IRRC, No. 282, 05–06 1991, p. 308).Google Scholar See also International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (eds), World Disasters Report, Geneva, 1994, p. 34.Google Scholar — “Complex emergencies” is an amorphous term used by the UN to bypass argument over the dividing line between armed conflicts and other situations. It implies, at a minimum, the breakdown of national order, human suffering, and lack of control by any one authority.

3 From a vast literature on the Movement, see especially two recent publications: Bugnion, François, Le Comite international de la Croix-Rouge et la protection des victimes de la guerre, ICRC, Geneva, 1994 Google Scholar; and Hutchinson, John, Champions of charity: War and the rise of the Red Cross, Westview Press, Boulder, 1996.Google Scholar

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6 This framework is adapted from Minear, Larry and Weiss, Thomas G., Mercy under fire: War and the global humanitarian community, Westview Press, Boulder, 1995.Google Scholar

7 1995 Annual Report, ICRC, Geneva, 1996.Google Scholar ICRC figures separate assistance from other categories such as “operational support for delegations” and “management”, making it difficult to get a total picture of the cost of assistance operations.

8 Hairoff-Tavel, Marion, “Action taken by the International Committee of the Red Cross in situations of internal violence”, IRRC, No. 294, 05–06 1993, p. 215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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11 A particularly well informed account is given by Hentsch, Thierry in Face au Blocus: La Croix-Rouge Internationale dans le Nigéria en guerre (1967–1970), Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 1973.Google Scholar The ICRC had obtained “fly at your own risk” permission from Lagos. After that permission was revoked, the ICRC continued to participate in “night” flights, in which Red Cross planes mixed in with planes carrying armaments to Biafran forces. This airlift was thus not a purely neutral operation. But the ICRC was concerned about civilians in the Biafran enclave, and was competing with Joint Church Aid (JCA), a coalition of relief agencies not much interested in the niceties of State consent or neutrality. Had the ICRC withdrawn earlier, it would have left assistance in war to JCA and would have lost much support among public opinion in Europe and North America, which was pro-Biafran.

12 Minear, Larry and Weiss, Thomas G., op.cit. (note 6).Google Scholar See also Minear, Larry et al. , Humanitarian action in the former Yugoslavia: The U.N.'s Role 1991–1993, Occasional Paper # 18, Brown University, Watson Institute, Providence, RI, 1994, pp. 43, 78.Google Scholar

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18 In the former Yugoslavia at approximately the same time, the ICRC accepted military protection to guarantee the release and exchange of prisoners, but not for civilian relief. UNHCR accepted military protection from UNPROFOR for the delivery of assistance.

19 Leaning, in Cahill, , op.cit. (note 4), p. 108.Google Scholar

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22 Ibid.

23 ICRC, Emergency appeal, 1995, p. 155.Google Scholar

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25 Oliver, Thomas W., The United Nations in Bangladesh, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1978.Google Scholar In that situation, for a time, the UN relief coordinator was a Swiss national who was also a member of the ICRC. It was not always clear whether the person in question was wearing his UN hat or his ICRC hat when directing relief activities.

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27 Minear, Larry and Weiss, Thomas G., op.cit. (note 6), p. 118.Google Scholar

28 Doctors Without Borders did not orient itself to armed conflict and was not initially much interested in matters of State consent. Physicians for Human Rights was especially interested in forensic medicine, whereas the ICRC refused to cooperate in penal proceedings in order to facilitate its action inside countries. The ICRC, whatever its quiet diplomacy, also did not seek to mobilize opposition to abuse of medical ethics in relation to detainees. On the last point see Stover, Eric, The open secret: Torture and the medical profession in Chile, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, 07 1987 Google Scholar and Bloche, Gregg, Uruguay's military physicians: Cogs in a system of State terror, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, 03 1987.Google Scholar

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32 Caratsch, Claudio, “Humanitarian design and political interference: Red Cross work in the post-Cold-War period”, International Relations, No. 11/4, 04 1993, p. 308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Mr Caratsch, an ICRC Vice-President, then added that this was more than the ICRC normally does for the press, and that journalists often find ICRC press releases not “sexy” enough, p. 312.Google Scholar

33 See, eg., The Economist, 05 21, 1988, p. 80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 Mercier, Michèle, Crimes sans châtiment: L'action humanitaire en ex-Yougoslavie 1991–1993, Bruylant, Brussels, 1994 Google Scholar; and Girod, Christophe, op.cit. Google Scholar (note 17). Both books were published first in French. The former was also published in English: Crimes without punishment, Pluto Press, London, 1995.Google Scholar But the latter was not published in English after a diplomatic protest. Yet there is little in Girod's French text to justify non-publication in English, in this author's opinion. One interviewee in Geneva told me: “A diplomatic protest is not to be taken lightly”. It is rather doubtful that many other relief agencies, which emphasize independent concern for civilians, would curtail circulation of a historical account because of a State's unhappiness with its contents.

35 Hutchinson, , op.cit. (note 3), p. 3.Google Scholar

36 Minear, and Weiss, , op.cit. (note 6), 164.Google Scholar

37 ICRC, The role of the ICRC in relief operations, op.cit. (note 21), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar See also Junod, Dominique-D., The imperiled Red Cross and the Palestine Eretz-Yisrael conflict 1945–1952, Kegan Paul International, London and New York, 1996.Google Scholar

38 Quoted in Kent, Randolph C., Anatomy of disaster relief: The international network in action, Pinter Publishers, London, 1987, p. 173.Google Scholar

39 Minear, et al. , Humanitarianism in the former Yugoslavia, op.cit. (note 12), p. 40.Google Scholar

40 Médecins sans frontieres (eds), Populations in danger, MSF-UK, London, p. 13.Google Scholar

41 Eliasson, Jan, quoted in: Childers, Erskine, with Urquhart, Brian, Renewing the United Nations system, The Dag Hammarskjold Institute, for the Ford Foundation, Uppsala, 1994, p. 255.Google Scholar

42 After the Rwandan mass exodus in 1994, various relief agencies disagreed about whether to provide food to refugee camps in which militias operated. UNHCR continued with food deliveries, but MSF stopped its medical work, believing it was contributing to a resumption of fighting in the future.

43 Mégevand, Béatrice, “Between insurrection and government,” IRRC, No. 304, 01–02 1995, pp. 94–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 Red Cross/Red Crescent, 01–04 1994, p. 21.Google Scholar

45 Natsios, Andrew S., op.cit. (note 10), pp. 73–74.Google Scholar

46 On ICRC decision-making in World War II see especially Favez, Jean-Claude, line mission impossible? Le CICR, les déportations, et les camps de concentration nazis, Payot, Lausanne, 1988.Google Scholar Favez had access to ICRC archives. Compare with Bugnion, François, op.cit. Google Scholar, (note 3), who gives a more favourable interpretation but who is an ICRC official.

47 Junod, Dominique-D., op.cit. (note 37).Google Scholar

48 Freymond, Jacques, Guerres, Revolutions, Croix-Rouge, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 1976.Google Scholar Freymond was a Vice-President and Acting President of the ICRC.

49 Some of the changes are captured by Vichniac, Isabelle, Croix-Rouge, les stratèges de la bonne conscience, Alain Moreau, Paris, 1988 Google Scholar, but there are errors in this account.

50 See, e.g., “Guiding principles on the right to humanitarian assistance”, adopted by the Council of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (San Remo), in IRRC, No. 297, 11–12 1993, pp. 519–525.Google Scholar

51 Sahnoun, Mohamed, Somalia: The Missed Opportunities, US Institute of Peace Press, Washington, 1994, p. 18.Google Scholar See also his comment laying blame on “an overwhelming United Nations bureaucracy that, in contrast to the Red Cross, is made up of civil servants more interested in careers and perquisites than in the job at hand”, quoted in Perlez, J., “No easy fix for Somalia”, New York Times, 7 09, 1992, p. A1.Google Scholar

52 Minear, Larry, “Making the humanitarian system work better”Google Scholar, in Cahill, Kevin, (ed), op.cit. (note 4), p. 243.Google Scholar

53 Cuny, Fred, “Humanitarian assistance in the post-Cold War era”, in Weiss, Thomas G. and Minear, Larry, (ed), Humanitarianism across borders, Lynne Rienner, Boulder, 1993, p. 168.Google Scholar

54 Ingram, James, “The future architecture for international humanitarian assistance”Google Scholar, in Weiss, Thomas G. and Minear, Larry, op.cit. (note 53), p. 189 and passim.Google Scholar