Introduction: Safe Areas as a Response to Humanitarian Crises?

Abstract

Internationally proclaimed safe areas do not aim to end ongoing wars. Instead, their more limited goal is to create islands of temporary refuge where threatened civilians can find shelter. As intuitively compelling as the idea of safe areas may seem, however, it raises numerous practical and ethical questions. The articles in this special issue draw on history, moral philosophy and political science in order to assess whether safe areas are indeed an appropriate response to humanitarian crises.