The Politics of Humanity

(both in Chapter 4). Instead, I will consider the practice in the way it illustrates the
twin impossibility for professional humanitarians of ring-fencing their practice to
exclude the possibility of humanitarian intervention, and of using the language of
universal human rights as a means to overcome their own unaccountability, I will
then assess the potential of the emergent notion of a “Responsibility to Protect” to
do a better job of resolving this tension, before, in the next section, asking, in the
context of debates on global justice whether in fact the limited scope of
responsibility in question is the problem, as far as resolving the contingencies of
humanitarian action is concerned.
David Rieff remarks that “human rights interventions” would be a less
misleading term for what we commonly term “humanitarian interventions”.^70
Though I will continue with the common term “humanitarian intervention”, Rieff
reminds us of one of the reasons why humanitarian intervention is controversial
within professional humanitarianism: that recent discussions of humanitarian
intervention have taken place on the grounds of human rights protection rather
than more diffuse conceptions of human suffering. The concept currently functions
in relation to the protection of human rights, and substantial sections of
professional humanitarianism see their own task differently. As such, humanitarian
intervention has been the linchpin of discussions over how far humanitarianism
should define itself in terms of human rights, and follow the logic of human rights,
should that logic dictate military intervention. Chris Brown makes clear that there
can be no beating around the bush. When it comes down to it, “effective
humanitarian intervention is an act of power”.^71 As such, the issue goes to the heart
of professional humanitarians’ reluctance to see themselves as powerful actors, or
to see powerful actors as humanitarian.
Rieff notes that, “[like] most humanitarians I have known, I am not a
pacifist”, going on to make the case for military intervention and protectorates in
certain extreme cases.^72 He maintains that “to argue for military intervention on
political grounds ... is not the same thing as arguing for military intervention on
70
71 Rieff, At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention xi.
72 Brown, Sovereignty, Rights and Justice , 153.
Rieff, A Bed for the Night , 329.