Saving friends or saving strangers? Critical humanitarianism and the geopolitics of international law

Abstract

Abstract. What can critical geopolitics contribute to an understanding of the political dynamics of humanitarianism within International Relations? This article demands a reconsideration of the concept of humanitarianism by examining the spatial ordering of international society and the geopolitics of international law that condition our understanding of humanitarian agency and conduct within IR. The focus on critical geopolitics seeks to identify the normative structure of humanitarianism and how humanitarian claims -which are seemingly universal -are constituted through specific geopolitical discourses that structure agency and conduct within international life. Considering how humanitarianism is discursively structured as a geopolitical concept involves taking humanitarianism beyond its methodological privileging of impartiality, neutrality, and universality in making sense of humanitarianism. Critical humanitarianism does not accept the grounding of humanitarianism within an intuitive moral framework but instead locates humanitarian agency and conduct within a spatialised understanding of the international system. Such a spatialised ordering of humanitarianism takes the analytical focus away from 'saving strangers' (Wheeler) and 'global conscience' (Linklater) towards a consideration of the ways in which international law is the product of historical particulars that reflect a complex political sociology of the state (Schmitt).

Cross-cultural metacognition as a prior for humanitarian knowledge: when cultures collide in global health emergencies

“…No consensus concerning the epistemic inquiry above has been reached so far; nevertheless, along with the arrival of the age of human rights in the second half of the twentieth century, some humanistic scholars have come to accept that to a certain extent, humanitarian knowledge is homologous with the idea of humanism but can be seen as a culturally neutral, more contemporary concept (Moore, 2013;Meng, 2017;Peters, 2019). Hence, we focus on discussing the crucial role of humanitarian knowledge in GPHEs.…”

“…However, in reality, this notion is often embedded with intricate entanglements of geopolitics, capitalism and ethics because humanitarianism is significantly related to global governance that may not only justify the delivery of emergency aid, but also legitimise military intervention for human subsistence in the international society (Moore, 2013). Too often, humanitarianism has informed and been interpreted within the discourses of international laws and relations across diverse geopolitical locations, resulting in multiple understandings.…”

What if R2P Was—Truly—Everyone’s Business? Exploring the Individual Responsibility to Protect

“…At the same time, it does promote competing understandings of ethics and morality, which mitigates the risk of a specific discourse of humanitarianism to be presented as universal and imposed to justify certain forms of intervention. 113 Therefore, though acknowledging the individual dimension to the responsibility to protect will certainly make the concept messier, this should not necessarily be understood negatively. First, given that, more often than not, individual R2P will be responsibility with little power, it will be less likely to backfire than forceful state intervention of the Libyan type, for example.…”

Flirting with Capital

“…As scholars have noted (Bernstein and Shih forthcoming; Cheng 2010), moments like these point to the aid industry that must wrestle with how it differentiates between the "truly" needy and imposters. Reality tours, or trips to fictive rural homes, create narratives of non-Western misery to please charitable "rescuers" (Kapoor 2013;Moore 2012). Of the 20 women that I studied in this sector oriented towards Western backpackers, 13 had received large remittances from clients, ranging from US$1,000-US$50,000.…”