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8 Global Governance 265 (2002)
The Failure of International Humanitarian Action in Afghanistan

handle is hein.journals/glogo8 and id is 275 raw text is: Global Governance 8 (2002), 265-271 GLOBAL INSIGHTS The Failure of International Humanitarian Action in Afghanistan Nicholas J. Stockton n adapting to the challenges of the 2001-2002 war against terrorism in Afghanistan, the international humanitarian system has experi- enced an identity crisis.1 Humanitarian principles clash with orga- nizational considerations. A conventional interpretation of humanitarian principles and law would posit that the primary duty bearers for pro- viding emergency relief should be the warring parties themselves, with the international humanitarian system providing secondary support on a neutral and impartial basis. Instead, in Afghanistan, the international re- lief agencies have successfully advocated for an outside monopoly over the provision of relief aid in spite of the insecurity and remoteness of much of the country. The constraints facing the relief agencies have been partly logistical and, for the United Nations (UN) system and many international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), partly due to threats to the security of field staff posed by their non-neutral status. While the coalition forces had the means to overcome the former prob- lem, and the delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were not compromised with regard to the latter, neither of these respective institutional advantages translated into the major relief pro- grams that both law and politics would indicate. As the evidence emerges of the high human costs associated with the failure of the inter- national community to provide timely and adequate relief aid in certain contested and inaccessible areas of Afghanistan,2 the causes of this lam- entable state of affairs need to be understood. The position widely held among UN and international NGO staff is explained by Jean Ziegler, UN special rapporteur on the Right to Food, who in November 2001 wrote: Food drops by military forces compromise the credibility of hu- manitarian aid, which in its essence must be neutral, universal and

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