The proliferation of civil wars over the past decade has produced a growing number of
humanitarian emergencies that require international attention. As the world’s only superpower
and a major humanitarian aid donor, the United States has a critical role in shaping
the response to these emergencies. Whether or not the Bush administration decides to
maintain American leadership in this area, it will have to develop firm guidelines for humanitarian
action in the cases it chooses to address. It should remedy four major failings in the
U.S. government response to prior humanitarian emergencies:
• Inadequate protection of the physical safety and human rights of the affected populations
• Insufficient focus on internally displaced persons as compared with refugees
• The absence of robust institutional mechanisms to coordinate the many disparate offices of
the U.S. government working on humanitarian and human rights emergencies
• Inadequate attention to deficiencies in the international response system
