Running Head: HUMANITARIAN PRINCIPLES 1

Humanitarian Principles

Name

Institutional Affiliation

Humanitarian Principles

The word humanitarian refers to the acts of saving lives and preventing or minimizing

suffering. It is normally associated with emergency response during dangerous, life-threatening

disasters. The disaster can occur naturally, leading to harm to the people in the affected region,

for example, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods among others. The disaster may be human-made, like
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in cases of wars and industrial explosions. The emergency response is also called humanitarian

response (DuBois, 2018). The set of principles that govern how the humanitarian response is

conducted are humanitarian principles. The principles are key in reaching out to the affected

people and maintaining the response activates. Compliance with these principles is essential in

ensuring effective coordination. There are four main guiding humanitarian principles already

adopted by the UN General Assembly, namely, humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and

independence.

History of Humanitarian Principles

These principles were borrowed from the activities of the International Committee of the

Red Cross and the National Red Cross/Red Crescent societies. The principles were approved in

two General Assembly resolutions. The first resolution 46/182, happened in 1991 and led to the

adaption of the three principles, humanity, neutrality, and impartiality (Med, 2015). This

particular General Assembly resolution also ensured establishment of the function of the

Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC). The second resolution 58/114 took place in 2004 and led

to inclusion of independence as the fourth principle that is necessary to humanitarian practices

(Med, 2015). Several other international organizations have afterward accepted and integrated

these principles.

The Four Humanitarian Principles

Humanity

This principle states that all humans ought to be treated in the most humane and just

manner regardless of the situations to ensure there are lives saved and suffering is prevented,

stopped, or reduced. All individuals should be handled with respect (Raymond & Card, 2015).
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This principle’s purpose is the protection of life and health respectfully for all. The principle also

leads to the promotion of friendly, peaceful coexistence, togetherness, and understanding.

Neutrality

This principle cautions against taking sides during a conflict or be involved in any

controversies based on the nature of politics, races, religion, or ideologies. Agencies involved in

emergency response should not be involved in acts that make them choose sides.

Impartiality

This third principle states that humanitarian deeds must be performed regarding the need,

only ensuring priority is given on urgency of the case in terms of severity and distress. There

must not be discrimination based on nationality, racial difference, sex, religion, or political

factors. The principle ensures equality for all.

Independence

According to this principle, humanitarian action must be unconstrained from other

motives that any participants may have depending on the region in which the practices are

happening. The motives may be political, military, or economic( Mierop, 2016). The agencies

conducting humanitarian actions should not be affected by government policies in these regions.

Other Humanitarian Principles.

The above discussed are the major principles that form the bottom line for the

organizations involved in aiding disaster victims. Apart from the four main principles, there are

other principles. Universality is a principle that calls for solidarity during decisions without

considering the potential or resources in the regions. Proselytism requires organizations assisting

victims not to use the assistance to cause more divisions of any kind.

Respecting Humanitarian Principles

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These principles have been explained in detail by several recognized international

documents. More than 492 aid organizations have signed the UN code of conduct that contains a

set of regulations for organizations that participate in providing assistance. Signing the code

means committing to humanitarian principles. The Convention held in Geneva also set

regulations on how relief to victims of disaster should be conducted. The convention made it

clear that the provision of assistance should be fair to all without choosing sides and be done

humanely. The convention in a strengthened some of the humanitarian principles.

A team of independent international organizations designed a book referred to as the

Sphere Handbook, for uniting their intentions on the improvement of humanitarian aid. They

sought to make the aid more effective and the organizations more accountable. The WHO in

greatly respects the humanitarian principles (World Health Organization, 2019). It also expects

its staff and the organizations that partner with it to give respect to the code of conduct. All actors

involved should respect the established principles. That is the only way these principles can

remain applicable and sensible. There are many factors especially from the political background,

that can lead to abuse of some of these principles.Regardless of these factors, the organizations

that have chosen to take up responsibility must ensure their conduct is in line with the principles

all the time.

Sustainable Development Goals. (SDGs)

These are objectives that were debated and agreed upon by the United Nations General

Assembly. The objectives were adopted in 2015 to run from 2016-2030 (Morton, Pencheon, &

Squires, 2017). The objectives were set in an agreement to make the world a better place by

ensuring the problem of poverty is eliminated, protecting all that makes the earth a good place to

live, and finally ensuring that people live peacefully and prosper (Barbier, & Burgess, 2018). The
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goals provide the world with the best opportunity of making all required adjustments and

working in unity with one another for implementation of the global goals approach for future

generations. There are 17 goals related to one another, which, if not implemented, altogether, the

global target will not be realized (Morton, Pencheon, & Squires, 2017). Some goals are long term

projects while others will be met within a less period, but these are what will lay a foundation for

achieving the other goals.

The goals are distributed among the five areas of vital significance. The goals that are

linked to people are, no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being, quality education,

gender equality, and clean water and sanitation. The goals of climate action, life below water, and

life on land are linked to the planet (Morton, Pencheon, & Squires, 2017). Goals linked to the

area of prosperity are affordable clean energy, decent work and economic development, industry,

innovation and infrastructure, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, and

responsible consumption and production. The last two goals are partnership for the goals and

peace, justice and strong institutions. These two belong to the area of peace and partnerships.

These goals are world-wide and apply to all countries. They have well-developed means of

gathering the required resources in finance and material forms.

Humanitarian Actions and SDGs

The humanitarian actions are connected to these SDGs, and they are being undertaken in

a way to help achieve the SDGs. The upcoming trends witnessed locally, nationally, and

internationally in preparing and managing crises are increasing over time. Actors from different

backgrounds are coming together, initializing plans and organizing to take care of the increasing

needs (OCHA, 2015). The humanitarian strategies of coherent financing, emergency

preparedness, and responses against crises, empowerment of women and, inclusive decision
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making are among the most important foundations initializing the SDGs implementation. The

humanitarian system at international level is playing a fundamental role in giving help and

protection during conflicts when the domestic efforts are affected by crises resulting in

insufficient resources and knowledge. These actions when added together will play a major role

in the achievement of SDGs.

Risks to Humanitarian Principles

Humanitarian actors take a great task in their mission to ensure help reaches the people in

need. Their efforts are not always as easy as they encounter various challenges (OCHA 2017).

These challenges are what bring risk to humanitarian principles. A challenge can affect more than

one principle when it occurs. More importantly, there are those principles that are somehow

interlinked.

Accessibility and Restrictions

First, the issue of access contributes a lot to the challenges that humanitarian actors face.

The problem of infrastructure is one major factor that leads to inaccessibility of areas with

disasters. This problem will lead to unequal distribution of relief available. This issue is a

physical barrier to humanitarian actions. With this infrastructure issue, the humanitarian

organizations providing relief end up avoiding some areas and concentrate on more accessible

areas. The inaccessibility leads to a lack of impartiality in provision of assistance.

The next challenge is the existence of government restrictions, for example, import

restrictions. When countries are in crisis, they tend to impose certain restrictions on goods

entering the country as a way of keeping their enemies in check. The restriction now affects

those organizations that rely on bringing foreign relief and other assistance negatively.

Conflicts
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In some nations where there are ongoing conflicts and humanitarian activities are being

established, the principle of neutrality usually at risk. The local governments may not control

over a part of the nation. The donor organizations tend to work with a motive of helping one side

win. The decision can be due to relationships with the government. There may be a lack of

distinction between emergency processes and development projects. The role of humanitarian

practices is to provide emergency responses. The principles are at risk when an organization

decides to involve in other development projects in the affected nations. Humanitarian

organizations can have limited opportunities to raise the local government’s awareness of these

principles.

There is much insecurity in conflict-affected nations. The insecurity makes organizations

rely on armed protection mostly from government-sponsored personnel. This action ends up

affecting the principle of neutrality in these situations.

Different forces control different regions in nations having violence cases. The

government may stop the humanitarian organization from taking help to a region controlled by a

rival group. The act of helping people at only one of the opposing sides can be interpreted as

having a political inclination. The principles of neutrality and impartiality are needs-based.

Donors

Most humanitarian organizations rely on donors for financial and other material

assistance. This reliance on donors, especially when the donors are few, can result in some

challenges for example when these donors have some interests in the nations affected. It is

difficult to reject help from donors even when the organization is in tied conditions. A good

example is an American war in Afghanistan (Council on Foreign Relations 2019). The donor

organization cannot accept any American help that will be channeled to Afghanistan because by
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doing this, the US may assume to have control over the organization thereby interfering with its

independence. Such cases have resulted in donor organizations refraining from using already

available resources whose origins are known to be linked to a nation with some interest in one of

the conflicting nations. When financing projects, it is important to ensure independence by

selecting donors after a thorough analysis to prevent donor-controlled interference.

Other challenges

Different organizations deal with different kinds of assistance, like the World Health

Organization (WHO) and the World Food Program (WFP). An organization can have unequal

distribution of field teams in different areas leading to uneven global level coverage (Steets,

Meier, Harmer, Stoddard, & Spannagel, 2018). Inequality affects the principle of impartiality.

The few field personnel can be a result of having limited cash to hire them.

Migrants into Europe are facing a hard time when crossing through the sea as they seek

safer regions. The local government there in these European countries, for example, Italy are

against these migrants whose number has increased over recent years (Human Rights Watch

2018). The humanitarian principles are being broken here since it is a right for everyone to

receive assistance regardless of their origins. Solidarity is being challenged here.

Mitigation Approaches.

An approach to avoid the risk of the political side taking would be to partner with other

national NGOs from these nations, for humanitarian organizations to get access to areas with

populations exposed to vulnerability. The organization must enter into dialogues with the

political groups that control these areas, but this has to be done with necessary measures not to

interfere with neutrality and the principle of independence.

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The humanitarian organizations are supposed to seek local state’s authority to set up their

programs and be ready to comply with the local regulations. These organizations should not

accept to deliberately stop giving required assistance to parts of the country in need of this help if

asked by the authorities. Transparency is key when operating programs in foreign countries.

Achieving transparency can lead to local state authorities visiting the sites the operations are

conducted. The authorities might require the organizations to share information from its team,

and the populations assisted. Caution should be taken not to violate the humanitarian principles

by giving information that may cause harm to the local population.

Conclusion

Humanitarian principles guide us in our everyday life. There is a means for which

international relations should be regulated to ensure equality, and no nations manipulate another

by being economically or democratically superior. Regular clear communications about these

principles and practicing them is important in enhancing acceptance from all involved actors.

Humanitarian actors in different countries have also to respect these principles. However, the

world today poses many challenges to these principles. Therefore a system change needs to be

done to win against the various obstacles. New approaches should be established to ensure the

principles are respected and followed.

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Council on Foreign Relations (2019). The U.S. war in Afghanistan. Retrieved from

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DuBois, M. (2018). Human policy group. The new humanitarian basics. Retrieved from

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Human Rights Watch (2018). European Union. Retrieved from

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