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Carving Out A Niche For Humanitarianism Within The Responsibility To Protect, Oana D. Alexan

The Macalester Review

Humanitarian action aims to alleviate the humanitarian symptoms of crises, yet humanitarian ideals have been stretched in ways relief workers never expected. For one, the right of humanitarian intervention rests on the premise that war, whose nature provides the rationale for killing, may be labeled a humanitarian act if waged for humanitarian ends. Humanitarian relief organizations oppose the misleading and manipulative labeling of conflicts that contradict the fundamental rationale of humanitarian action—the alleviation of suffering. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the international community engaged in a dialogue that gave birth to the concept of the “Responsibility to Protect.” …