The transformation of humanitarianism from the margins to the center of the international policy agenda has been achieved through the redefinition of humanitarian policy and practice and its integration within the fast-growing agenda of human rights. The new international discourse of human rights activism no longer separates the spheres of strategic state and international aid from humanitarianism, but attempts to integrate the two under the rubric of “ethical” or “moral” foreign policy. As the humanitarian NGOs have been integrated into policymaking forums, the policymakers have increasingly claimed to be guided by humanitarian principles. The human rights NGOs, in conjunction with governments and international institutions, have established a rights-based “new humanitarian” consensus, which has succeeded in redefining humanitarian policy. The universal principles, which defined the early humanitarian internationalists, are now widely criticized by their NGO successors as the language of universal humanitarianism has been reworked to pursue human rights ends. The “new humanitarians” assert that their ambitious strategic ends inevitably clash with their earlier principles, which developed in an age when it was necessary to obtain the consent from states, in which they operated, and the opportunities for more long-term involvement were limited. Today, not only is this more interventionist approach seen as a legitimate response to humanitarian crises in non-Western states, it is increasingly understood to be nonpolitical and ethically driven. This paper is concerned with the process through which the core ethics of humanitarianism have been transformed, focusing on the shift in the politics of humanitarian interventionism as advocated by nongovernmental organizations during and after the Cold War. It considers the nonpolitical approach of traditional humanitarian organizations and the development of more politicized human rights-based humanitarian NGOs, it further analyzes some of the consequences of this change, the retreat from the principles of neutrality and universalism, and the development of “military humanitarianism.”
