The Road to Military Humanitarianism: How the Human Rights NGOs Shaped a New Humanitarian Agenda

The transformation of humanitarianism from the margins to the center of international policy agenda has been achieved through the redefinition of  humanitarian policy and practice and its integration within the fast-growing agenda of human rights. The new international discourse of human rights activism no longer separates the spheres of strategic state and international aid from humanitarianism, but attempts to integrate the two under the rubric of "ethical" or "moral" foreign policy. As the humanitarian NGOs have been integrated into policymaking forums, the policymakers have increasingly claimed to be guided by humanitarian principles. This paper is concerned with the process through which the core ethics of humanitarianism have been transformed, focusing on the shift in the politics of humanitarian interventionism as advocated by nongovernmental organizations during and after the Cold War. It considers the nonpolitical approach of traditional humanitarian organizations and the more politicized human rights-based humanitarian NGOs, it further analyzes some of the consequences of this change, the retreat from the principles of neutrality and universalism, and the development of "military humanitarianism."