By Jonas Ecke

August 15, 2019 "Information Clearing House" -   The last century has seen the emergence of several humanitarian norms and laws that were arduous, even frustrating, to implement and often ignored by governments, but which were the result of important lessons learned from the destruction that the world wars brought to civilian populations.

Historical attempts to limit organized brutality had existed before the world wars, as the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 – which brought the system of modern states into existence – epitomizes. Though these efforts should not be trivialized, the world wars catalyzed efforts to devise legal mechanisms to protect civilians and combatants on a global scale. For example, the “Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War” were signed in Geneva in 1929, a bit more than a decade after World War I. The term Geneva Conventions usually refers to an agreement four years after the conclusion of World War II, which not only updated the terms in regards to prisoners of war of the previous Geneva conventions, but also stipulates the humane treatment of the wounded and sick, as well as civilians in and around warzones. As brutal as the wars since the Second World War continued to be – humanitarians were now handed some legal mechanism that obligated states to prevent combatants from indiscriminately attacking civilians or abusing prisoners of war.

International treaties also sought to protect those displaced by war: The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees put into existence a previously-lacking legal framework and even a whole agency, the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), with the sole aim of serving displaced people. Before the United Nation member states could all formulate a “duty to rescue at sea” – which is binding in peace and wartime – in the second half of the 20th century, no legal obligation to rescue drowning people on the high sea existed.

Unfortunately, we have entered a time in which all these fragile accomplishments have become imperiled: As Alexander de Waal of the Fletcher School of Government – one of the most renowned scholars on the topic of humanitarian emergencies – argues, we are living in times that are shaped by “counter-humanitarianism ideologies”. These are not principled criticisms of humanitarian overreach, informed by a fear that overambitious humanitarian actions may undermine the very principles it tries to protect. Rather these emerging “counter-humanitarianism ideologies” constitute an outright rejection of humanitarian values and the institutions enabled by these values.

There are several reasons behind why we have entered this brave new world: One is that retrograde xenophobic political movements have swept the polls in western countries, which have grown more economically unequal and polarized on issues such as race and migration. For whatever precise reasons, the supporters of LePen of France, Orbán of Hungary, and Donald Trump in the US sneer at humanitarian norms. Even centrist governments may clamp down on humanitarian norms in an attempt to take away voters from rightwing parties.