Sublime

Should we conclude from these events that the “humanitarian space” is shrinking, as many observers of the humanitarian scene have been claiming in recent years? NGOs, United Nations agencies and donors are unanimous in deploring a “growing tendency to close the door to humanitarians, preventing them from helping victims”.

“blurred distinctions between the roles of military and humanitarian organisations; political manipulation of humanitarian assistance [and the] perceived lack of independence of humanitarian actors from donors or from host governments”.

Eight years after the publication of In the Shadow of Just Wars,6 it examines the precept that the political exploitation of aid is not a misuse of its vocation, but its principal condition of existence.