wayside. But in the face of even the most crushing acts of inhumanity, some people,
sometimes, do act. It is important to bring those actions into our understanding of
humanitarianism if we are to generate a sense of what humanitarian action can be,
beyond an impoverished list of operating principles and procedures. In this sense,
some acts of rescue, such as those undertaken by the “Righteous among the
Nations”, come as close as is possible to summarising the possibilities and
characteristics of humanitarian action. Yet in much contemporary writing on
humanitarianism, figures such as the Righteous simply do not appear. Perhaps they
do not fit textbook definitions of humanitarian action, but bringing in such figures to
the discussion of humanitarianism can greatly enrich our understanding of the
importance of rescue, but also of its limitations. Rescue cannot exhaust our
understanding of the acts required by humanitarianism, but it deserves a sustained
focus as an indispensable starting point.
The chapter proceeds in four, closely inter-related parts. I begin by
discussing different meanings of rescue as they apply to the rescued, which prompt
us to examine the conceptions of rescue held by their potential rescuers. In the
relationship that emerges between the two, I assess the interplay between motives,
intentions and outcomes, which leads on to the question of harm, legitimate means
and the use of violence in the service of acts of rescue. The moment of rescue
emerges as one of radical inequality and presumption. The implicit recognition of
this often leads us to formulate projects of rescue-in-advance. But the question
remains of whether the need for ad hoc, reactive rescue, with all its contingencies,
can ever be obviated.
I The Objects of Rescue: The Rescued
In certain circumstances, the meaning of rescue, and its place within our
understanding of humanitarianism, can appear to be rather clear. In a warzone, a
doctor can stem the flow of blood that would otherwise have been fatal to a
soldier. At a feeding station, a child can be brought back from the brink of