Humanitarian Bodies Research Articles

Defying the Humanitarian Gaze: Visual Representation of Genocide Survivors in the Eastern Mediterranean

Abstract: This article is a critical encounter with the genre of humanitarian photography through the case study of images of women survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Viewing photographs taken as part of the American humanitarian campaign in the Eastern Mediterranean, the article exposes the universalizing modality of humanitarian photography while exposing mass atrocities as perpetuating the silencing of victims by reducing them to symbols of suffering. Through an indexical, forensic, and critical fabulatory engagement with the humanitarian photograph, the article aims to unsettle the universalized humanitarian body and explore the possibilities that lie at the boundaries of traditional historical methodologies. Firstly, it exposes the constraints of reading the image solely within the framework of the humanitarian index, highlighting the resulting silences. Secondly, the forensic reading, while placing the photograph in the context of the larger textual archive, provides glimpses into the local circumstances surrounding its creation but still violently mutes the photographed. Lastly, inspired by the method of critical fabulation, the article embraces a speculative reading to reimagine the lives and experiences of the women in the photograph based on imaginary possibilities. Deploying a method that attends equally to archival content and that which is impossible to discern allows us to shift the focus to those who are visible photographically but are nonetheless invisible in the archive and muted by being forced to perform as part of the humanitarian index.

City Streets and Disco Beats: Recentring the Urban in Queer and Trans Migration Studies

The last decade has seen significant scholarly interest in the cross-border movements of LGBTQ Africans. This work has helped spotlight the unique protection challenges facing these individuals, as well as the failure of governments, humanitarian bodies and UN agencies to provide adequate and appropriate support. However, by focusing so pointedly on the macro level, this scholarship overlooks key social and spatial dynamics. In this commentary, I reflect on what is lost when the urban is reduced to a narrative feature rather than a unit of analysis and show how (re)centring the urban can open up new avenues for theorising queer and trans displacement. Despite occupying tenuous social and legal positions, LGBTQ refugees continue to navigate and transform various urban locations. These everyday spatial negotiations deserve greater attention as they reveal much about how social exclusion operates, and is potentially resisted, in different moments and places.

Trends in forced displacement due to conflict from 2009 to 2021: A decade forecast for effective humanitarian emergency response system in Nigeria

Internal displacement figures in conflicted affected regions of Nigeria is a significant problem that poses a risk of humanitarian crises accounted for by poor and a neglected emergency response system. The present study analyzed annual conflict/violence-induced internal displacement trends in Nigeria from 2009 to 2021 and predicted the annual figures for the next 10 years. Using the R software, the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) was adopted for analysis, while model (0, 0, 1) was chosen as the best fitting model with the minimum AIC coefficient. From the ARIMA forecast, 2022 showed a 4% decrease in displacement figures, further decreasing by 7% in 2023. The figures remained constant for the rest of the forecasted years, showing neither increases nor decreases from 2024 to 2031. Close observation revealed the overlapping trends between increased annual internal displacements and pre-election periods in Nigeria. This study will help inform humanitarian bodies on the significance of early detection and preparation for future displacement crises while considering the cycle of ethno-religious-related electoral violence. Furthermore, future studies should compare the accuracy of ARIMA with other models to ensure its validity using a similar sample.

FARMER- HERDER CONFLICTS AND THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC PREDICAMENTS OF WOMEN IN NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA

Farmer-Herder conflicts in North Central Nigeria have been rife since 1999. The emergence, development, and intensity of these clashes are underpinned by socio-economic, religious, and political undertones. Majorly, the area is endowed with fertile land, abundant water, and mineral resources attracting peasant farmers and herders for sustenance. The study made use of both primary and secondary sources. The study discovers that women are a powerful force in agricultural production, processing, and utilisation, and were seriously affected by these conflicts. This is because women have been killed, displaced, raped, and maimed, while their farming activities were truncated leading to joblessness, abject poverty, and food insecurity. Against this background, the study suggests that the government and other humanitarian bodies should focus on women empowerment programmes in North Central Nigeria. While anti-open grazing laws should be enforced in a manner to ensure that both farmers and herders live a symbiotic, resourceful, peaceful, and harmonious life in Central Nigeria.

Localisation requires trust: an interface perspective on the Rohingya response in Bangladesh.

Local actors are promoted as important agents in the humanitarian sector's latest reform efforts. Opinions on the exact meaning and the best means of implementing localisation differ, however. Applying an interface perspective, this paper analyses how the Rohingya response in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, became an arena of contestation, competition, and sometimes convergence among different actors in relation to localisation. It shows how misconceptions and divergent understandings of localisation and the best methods of achieving it were prevalent and hampered the joint endeavours of international and local humanitarian bodies. Although both sides sought common ground, conflicting views, interests, and perceptions of 'self' and 'other' stood in the way. A lack of trust between international and local organisations intensified divisions. The paper argues, therefore, that the humanitarian sector needs to engage in trust-building between the various entities involved in humanitarian response if localisation is to be realised, including addressing underlying structural and systemic issues of (neo)colonialism, racism, and classism.

Association between Socioeconomic Status and Psychological Distress among Rwandan Refugees in Zambia: a Gender Perspective

Urban refugees face several challenges which affect their emotional, social, and psychological well-being. This study utilised a quantitative cross-sectional design. The study assessed the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and psychological distress from a gender perspective among Rwandan refugees in Lusaka, Zambia. Two hundred and sixty-seven refugees between 18 and 65(M=33.99 years) participated in the study. The sample comprised men (47.9%) and women (52.1%) who were selected from Lusaka townships using purposive and convenience sampling techniques. SES was measured by assessing participants’ educational attainment, occupational status or employment, income, and financial support, whereas subjective psychological distress was evaluated using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28). Framed within the feminist and the ecological systems perspectives, the study established an association between SES and psychological distress. The proportions of female participants in the lower education and unemployment categories and lower-income bracket were considerably higher than males in the same category. Similarly, the study revealed that the proportion of females (27%) with severe depression was higher than males (19%). However, the gender difference was negligible with other subscales such as the somatic symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, and social dysfunction. Bivariate associations revealed well-established gender differences, where women with low education and financial support reported higher levels of psychological distress. Multivariate analysis revealed that employment predicted a lower level of psychological distress in both men and women. The findings highlight that refugees’ access to employment is an essential factor in determining psychological well-being. Well-defined intervention strategies by government and humanitarian bodies are critical and should aim to empower refugees towards easy access to formal and informal labour market opportunities.

KOREA'S FIRST‐GENERATION DIVIDED FAMILIES: The End of the Line?

This article describes and analyzes the desperate situation of Korean first‐generation divided family members who are still separated from their relatives nearly 70 years since the end of the Korean War (1950–1953). I aim to provide the reader with a reasonable quantification of the problem and make projections as to this first generation's likely future survival. The elements of the approach adopted to resolve the issue of family separation by the humanitarian bodies charged with addressing the problem, the Red Cross Societies of the two Koreas are described, and suggestions are made for improvement. The reunion program's successes and failures are critically assessed as is the key role played by the Red Cross Talks in the history of inter‐Korean relations. Finally, conclusions are drawn as to the practical measures which may contribute to a resolution to the problem before the final disappearance of Korea's first generation of aged, separated family members.

An Investigation into the Impact of the Biafran Government Public Health Policy 1967-1970?

The Biafra government prioritized diversity, and collaboration in its public health policy initiative to meet the health needs of its population during the Biafra war. The policy helped to ensure that internal and external professionals delivered the health needs of civilians during the war. However, continuous blockage of food, firearms, and medical supply links to Biafra by the Nigerian government led to eventual starvation, malnutrition, and disease outbreak among Biafrans during the war. Besides, the diversity and collaboration health policy by the Biafra government boosted the effectiveness of operational staff because they worked closely with those from other nations to improve the health and wellbeing of the Biafrans. The study was conducted by carrying out a literature review on different historical and up to date sources such as archived data, journals, articles, books, and newspapers. The researcher recommended that the policies and interventions of the government, public health organizations and other humanitarian bodies helping in the warfare should be shaped toward improving the health and wellbeing of people affected by war.

Do Non-State Armed Groups Have a Legal Right to Consent to Offers of International Humanitarian Relief?

Abstract During non-international armed conflicts, fighting parties have repeatedly denied international humanitarian relief to the civilian population under their territorial control leaving them at the brink of starvation. Debates on criminal accountability for violating the prohibition of the use of starvation against the civilian population as a method of warfare have yet to address the question of ownership of the right to consent to offers of international humanitarian relief before criminalising their denial. In respect of such right to consent at the strategic level, there are divergent interpretations on the application of the principle of symmetrical rights and obligations of fighting parties in the realm of international humanitarian relief. Humanitarian and state-centric perspectives, respectively, grant or deny non-state armed groups an independent right to consent to offers of international humanitarian relief. The humanitarian perspective argues that the asymmetry of such right in favour of the government party to the conflict and at the expense of the non-state armed groups is no longer justified, especially when the right of control at the operational level (after an offer has been accepted) is equally bestowed upon all parties to the conflict. The state-centric perspective defends the exclusive right of the government party to the conflict and fears that an equal right to strategic consent for non-state armed groups would increase their legitimacy. This study argues that neutrality upheld by international humanitarian relief actors, including impartial humanitarian bodies, such as the ICRC, and the Security Council gives rise to an interdependent exercise of the right to strategic consent by all fighting parties instead.

Lesbian refugees in transit: The making of authenticity and legitimacy in Turkey

Turkey is a “transit” country, where refugees spend many years waiting before they have a chance to be resettled to a third country. During this liminal period of waiting, refugees have to pursue and legitimize their asylum claims with various state and parastatal asylum infrastructures, such as the Turkish asylum authority, the UNHCR, third countries’ embassies, and national, international, and diasporic NGOs and aid providers. This article examines how Iranian lesbian refugees navigate these legal, governmental, and humanitarian bodies that make disparate demands to evaluate the “authenticity” of their identities and the “legitimacy” of their claims. I argue that, during the period of waiting in Turkey, lesbian refugees learn to master specific forms of telling and performance demanded by states, NGOs, and communities in order to carve space for themselves in a system that systematically discredits their sexualities. By continually tailoring their narratives and performances to conform to certain “lesbian types” prioritized by these institutions, organizations, and communities, refugees not only make themselves “authentic,” “deserving,” and “legitimate” subjects within established tropes, but also transform how they imagine and embody their own and others’ sexualities and genders.

Comparative Study of the Roles of ASEAN and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Responding to the Rohingya Crisis

Since 2012, Southeast Asia has witnessed the human rights tragedy of the Rohingya people of Myanmar. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have been displaced from their homes and traveled to refugee facilities in Myanmar and Bangladesh, while others have been stranded on the Andaman Sea. The Rohingya crisis is perhaps the most horrific human rights tragedy after the crisis in Vietnam in the 1970s. As the crisis has developed, international communities, including ASEAN and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), have responded to the crisis. As the main regional organization, ASEAN has been hoped to elucidate the crisis tactically through peaceful means. OIC, meanwhile, has been expected to join humanitarian action using a diplomatic approach to other international humanitarian bodies, including the UNHCR. However, it is obvious that ASEAN's response to the crisis has been limited to diplomatic oration and failed to prevent a wider crisis. For OIC, its humanitarian solidarity has lacked access to the target community. Therefore, this paper would like to attempt a comparative analysis to describe the central inquiry; how have ASEAN and OIC responded to the Rohingya crisis? This analysis involves studying ASEAN and OIC publications and related references. The initial argument of this paper is that both organizations have given reasonable responses to the crisis, but have been unable to halt its advance.

The 2016 World Humanitarian Summit Report Card: Both Failing Marks and Substantive Gains for an Increasingly Globalized Humanitarian Landscape.

Outcomes of the World Humanitarian Summit were mixed with some refreshing new directions being endorsed and a lack of systemic reform. The selective agenda and OCHAs lack of success in engaging pre-meeting political participation not only hampered the Summit’s ability to deal with global issues and institutional reform, but also alienated it from leading aid agencies and governments. The UN’s failure to commit to humanitarian principles and global disarray of the humanitarian system indicates the need for extensive reform or a new global humanitarian body. This agency needs to employ a decentralized model to manage aid funds, assume coordination of international responses, resolve civil-military coordination, cater for people affected by both conflict and disasters, and professionalize the humanitarian career.

Application of geospatial tools for landslide hazard assessment for Uganda

The need to predict possible occurrence of landslides is increasingly becoming a concern of governments and humanitarian bodies in developing countries. The occurrence of landslides and other related disasters in Uganda requires a shift from the current disaster management approach where interventions come into play following the disaster, towards a better approach where mitigation measures are planned before the disaster. In Uganda, studies that utilize spatial technologies to develop tools to support landslide disaster prediction have been limited by the problem of spatial data suitability and availability. This paper explores the suitability of the available spatial datasets as inputs into GIS-based landslide risk assessment in Uganda. The datasets used in this study included digital elevation model, soils, precipitation, vegetation cover and population. The relative importance of datasets was established by a combination of literature review, expert opinion and pair wise comparison technique. Through GIS tools, a prediction map was generated that showed risk levels of various areas in Uganda. The results from GIS analysis showed that the areas of highest risk included mountain slopes associated with high rainfall and clayey soils. The predicted high risk areas coincided with areas where landslides have recently occurred. On the basis of this, it was concluded that the current spatial datasets in Uganda, combined with data in the public domain could still be useful in providing reasonable predictions about landslides at a national level. The results of this research demonstrate the need to incorporate the use of geospatial tools in Uganda’s disaster management strategies.

THE CIVILIAN IN MODERN WAR

AbstractThere is a widespread view that civilians are worse off in today' wars than ever before. Civilians are often deliberately targeted by belligerents or are victims of ‘collateral damage’. They form the majority of victims of landmines. They are used as human shields. They are displaced from their homes, even from their country. They are affected, often more than soldiers, by the pestilence, famine and displacement that wars bring in their wake. They are often particularly vulnerable in the types of war that are most prevalent in the world today – including civil wars and asymmetric conflicts. Children are forced to become soldiers. How can it be that the lot of civilians in war remains so dire, when so much attention has been paid to the protection of civilians in war – not just in international treaties, but in the work of international organizations and also that of numerous humanitarian bodies?

Reputational Risk and Enforceability in International Law

Reputational Risk and Enforceability in International Law Rachel A. Bahn The lack of an automatic enforcement mechanism represents the greatest challenge to the development of international organizations and the body of international public law that they represent. Evidence of the impact of this non-enforceability is found in all areas of the international realm—economic, humanitarian, and political-strategic. However, the nature of political-strategic affairs heightens the impact of possible damage to national reputation and sets this branch of international law and organization apart. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has no absolute means through which to ensure compliance with its standards, even when its Dispute Settlement Panel determines that a member state has violated the WTO’s international liability and must alter its behavior or face retaliation from the harmed state. More to the point, there is no absolute means to ensure compliance with WTO standards. One need only look to the gambling case brought against the United States by the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda in order to verify the ineffectiveness of WTO panel decisions. In 2003, Antigua and Barbuda brought a legitimate complaint to the WTO that the United States had improperly restricted the sale of online gaming and betting services from the island nation. Nevertheless, even after the complaint was raised, the United States, another WTO member state, refused to comply with WTO standards, due in part to domestic political and ethical concerns about gambling.1 Because Antigua and Barbuda has little leverage against the United States, its WTO-sanctioned countermeasures (to the tune of $221 million) have been ineffective, permitting the behemoth to continue barring the sale of gambling services across its national borders.2 Subsequent to the WTO ruling, the United States retroactively altered its commitment to the General Agreement on Trade in Services—effectively continuing to violate its previously agreed international economic obligations.3 Humanitarian bodies have proven no more adept at ensuring compliance with international norms and standards. The authority and eventual judgment of human rights tribunals may be flaunted by states unwilling to deliver the politically powerful to the judgment of the international community. For years, Serbia refused to deliver a number of suspected Serbian war criminals to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia [End Page 101] so that their actions could be considered and judged on the international stage.4 (Included among these war criminals was Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general who was responsible for the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995, and Radovan Karadzic, the former Serbian president.5 ) To date, Serbia has refused to directly deliver either Mladic or Karadzic. Both men remain fugitives from international law.6 The United Nations and the body of international humanitarian and political law that it represents are similarly at the mercy of member states that choose to enforce or disregard their agreed-upon commitments and obligations. This is most evident in the case of the Security Council, where a single member may utilize its veto block action on the part of the entire UN. Without an international police force to ensure compliance with the will of the majority, absolute compliance with international norms remains a hope rather than a certainty. If international relations are considered as an iterative game, the high stakes of security and military affairs paradoxically give the prospect of reputational risk greater persuasive power in ensuring compliance with international obligations. The United States has suffered dramatically in terms of international public opinion because of its war in Iraq, and in certain Muslim countries, because of its perceived acquiescence to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. More striking, the United States’ reputation is falling in stature in countries that have been traditional allies, as well as those who might prove invaluable as future allies, for example Turkey, Morocco, and Jordan.7 Unilateralism in international affairs—whether political, economic, humanitarian, or otherwise—is not merely a willingness to go it alone, but a wager that in the long term, the action in question will validate any short-term reputational damage. The wager of the United States in Iraq has yet to prove its worth, while in...

Expressions of international contestation and mechanisms of democratic control

In this article, the authors examine various questions regarding the new expressions of international contestation, analysing answers and reactions from states to the emergence of non‐governmental actors opposed to the present world order who claim to propose alternatives to neo‐liberal governance. To do so, the authors identify some of the more visible movements of contestation against economic globalisation, like the Seattle, Prague, and Genoa demonstrations, and, first of all, the four editions of the World Social Forum that have taken place, first in Porto Alegre and latterly in Mumbai. At the same time, the article shows the interstate relations that aim to control and if necessary repress these movements, particularly after the attacks on 11 September 2001, and surveys the main legal measures adopted by governments and international institutions, in particular within the European Union. Finally, an account is given of certain strategies to “jurisdictionalise” international conflicts, which some new kinds of litigants purport to use to give legitimacy and visibility to contested claims by directing them to a third‐party adjudicator (a tribunal, a mediator, a humanitarian body, etc.).

West African students in Britain, 1900–60: The politics of exile

The number of mainly West African students in Britain steadily increased in this century. After 1920 African students were increasingly influenced by pan‐Africanist ideas and the nationalist movements, as well as radical politics and the experience of racial discrimination in Britain, and they formed various political organisations. The most important was the West African Students’ Union which served as a nationalist pressure group and training ground for many West African student‐politicians until the mid‐1950s. The WASU published a journal, supported nationalist activity in Africa, lobbied the Colonial Office, and resisted attempts by that government department and humanitarian bodies to direct African student political activities in Britain.

Protection and assistance for refugees in armed conflicts and internal disturbances: Reflections on the Mandates of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

This article examines the mandate to protect and assist refugees in armed conflicts and internal disturbances. It is a modest attempt to clarify the web of overlapping roles and mandates of humanitarian bodies, in particular the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (“the Movement”) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It purports to re-assess the evolution of their mandate and its extension. On the one hand, there is a need to define concrete principles, based on past and present practice, for humanitarian action. On the other, there must be sufficient leeway for flexibility and pragmatism in situations for which there is no comprehensive prognosis. The article concludes by demonstrating the interdependence and complementarity of humanitarian organizations which have to proffer protection and assistance where no other body can act.