Humanitarian Ethics: A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster – Hugo Slim

Humanitarian Ethics: A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster – Hugo Slim

Author: Hugo Slim

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Print Length: 224 pages

Genre: Non-Fiction / Politics & Political Science, Non-Fiction / Social Science

Topic: Aid, Dignity, Disaster, Ethics & Morality, Humanism, Humanitarian Action & Humanitarianism, Humanity, Impartiality, Independence, Neutrality (The Humanitarian Principles), Independence & Liberation, Politics & Power, Social Work & Services, War

Humanitarians are required to be impartial, independent, professionally competent and focused only on preventing and alleviating human suffering. It can be hard living up to these principles when others do not share them, while persuading political and military authorities and non-state actors to let an agency assist on the ground requires savvy ethical skills.

Getting first to a conflict or natural catastrophe is only the beginning, as aid workers are usually and immediately presented with practical and moral questions about what to do next. For example, when does working closely with a warring party or an immoral regime move from practical cooperation to complicity in human rights violations? Should one operate in camps for displaced people and refugees if they are effectively places of internment? Do humanitarian agencies inadvertently encourage ethnic cleansing by always being ready to ‘mop-up’ the consequences of scorched earth warfare? This book has been written to help humanitarians assess and respond to these and other ethical dilemmas.

Acknowledgements 
List of acronyms

Introduction 

PART ONE
ETHICAL FOUNDATIONS

1. The Ethical Origins of Humanitarian Action

PART TWO
THE MODERN ELABORATION OF HUMANITARIAN PRINCIPLES

2. The Humanitarian Goal—Humanity and Impartiality 
3. Political Principles—Neutrality and Independence
4. Dignity Principles—Respect, Participation and Empowerment
5. Stewardship Principles—Sustainability and Accountabilit
6. What Kind of Ethics is Humanitarian Ethics?

PART THREE
ETHICAL PRACTICE IN HUMANITARIAN ACTION

7. Reason and Emotion
8. Humanitarian Deliberation 
9. Moral Choices
10. Moral Responsibility 
11. Persistent Ethical Problems
12. The Ethical Humanitarian Worker 

Annex 1: The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement
Annex 2: The Code of Conduct for NGOs in Disaster Relief
Annex 3: The Humanitarian Charter
Annex 4: Principles of Good Humanitarian Donorship

Notes 
Index

Hugo Slim is a Senior Research Fellow at the Las Casas Institute for Social Justice at Blackfriars Hall at the University of Oxford and also works with the Institute of Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government. His humanitarian career has combined academia, operations, policy and diplomacy. He has been Head of Policy and Humanitarian Diplomacy at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Chief Scholar at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and Reader in International Humanitarianism at Oxford Brookes University. Hugo has also worked for Save the Children and the United Nations in Morocco, Sudan, Ethiopia, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Bangladesh, and been a Board Member of Oxfam GB and the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD). His most recent books are Solferino 21: Warfare, Civilians and Humanitarians in the Twenty First Century(2022 Hurst/OUP) and Humanitarian Ethics: A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster (2015 Hurst/OUP).

Source: https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/contributor/hugo-slim/

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