The Humanitarian Assistance Dilemma as the Challenge of Traditional Humanitarian Principles

Traditional humanitarian principles have their focus on humanity, independence, impartiality and neutrality. While principles of humanity and independence remain the least controversial traditional humanitarian principles, principles of impartiality and neutrality have attracted much criticism. In brief, while the principle of impartiality demands that humanitarian agencies provide aid according to need and without discrimination, the principle of neutrality requests that humanitarian agencies not take sides in conflicts. However, the principle of impartiality often benefits not only the genuinely affected populations but also armed combatants and belligerents. Examples like this were found in the case of Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand in the late 1970s. On the other hand, the principle of neutrality enables repressors to continue to cause harm through staying neutral, making no judgements and remaining silent onrepressors’mass abuse of victims, as like the example of the Biafra War (the Nigerian Civil War) in the late 1960s (Terry, 2002). The humanitarian assistance dilemma thus arises when confront with these paradoxical contradictions. The aim of this paper is twofold: first,
to delineate the humanitarian assistance dilemma resulting from following the traditional humanitarian principles of impartiality and neutrality; second, to suggest a modified set of humanitarian principles that help humanitarian agencies navigate their positions when confronting the humanitarian assistance dilemma.