Harvard's HPCR: Humanitarian Action Under Scrutiny, Criminalizing Humanitarian Engagement

The Harvard Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (HPCR) published a Working Paper, Humanitarian Action under Scrutiny: Criminalizing Humanitarian Engagement in February 2011. It outlines the international legal framework that supports humanitarian engagement in conflict zones, finding that counterterrorism laws at the UN and in major countries like the U.S. may significantly restrict humanitarian engagement by limiting interactions between aid groups and non-state armed groups on terrorist lists.

The paper describes two emerging and conflicting trajectories in the relationship between counterterrorism laws and humanitarian engagement:

1. Increasing recognition of the important role non-state entities (NSEs), which can be listed terrorist organizations, play in “ensuring humanitarian access and promoting adherence to international norms.”
    
2. Restrictions counterterrorism laws and policies place on interactions with NSEs.

It goes on to analyze the tension between these two trajectories in terms of international humanitarian law (IHL), as provided in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and subsequent Protocols. IHL establishes the right of humanitarian organizations to offer and provide their services to civilians in conflict zones, but conflict with “various international and domestic ‘listing’ mechanisms that regulate or in some cases prohibit various forms of humanitarian engagement with such ‘listed’ NSEs…”
 
Four “explanatory frameworks” are presented to categorize the types of conflicts between counterterrorism and humanitarian laws:

1. Total prohibition: bars “any benefit to, assistance for, or coordination with listed NSEs, even if that prohibition risks the loss of humanitarian services to civilian populations or the disbanding of major humanitarian operations in territories controlled by these entities.”
    
2. Mitigation: laws that seek to “rein in humanitarian actors’ interactions with NSEs, and attempt to limit the perceived threats that this interaction presents to security by making humanitarian organizations more accountable for their activities.”
    
3. Fragmentation: an inconsistent policy, “with some state organs supporting strong counterterrorism efforts and others promoting robust humanitarian access.”
    
4. Cooptation: bringing “humanitarian actors into the security machinery of the state.”

Potential coping mechanisms for humanitarian organizations are identified, but none resolve the conflict. The report is based on HCPR's research and analysis to date, and identifies “key areas for future research and policy engagement.” These include how the criminalization of humanitarian engagement can be addressed in non-armed conflicts situations with listed NSEs are present or controlling territory.
 
The HPCR is a research and policy program based at the Harvard School of Public Health. The Program is engaged in research and advisory services on humanitarian operations and the protection of civilians in conflict areas. The Program advises organizations such as the United Nations, governments, and non‐governmental actors, and focuses on the protection of vulnerable groups, conflict prevention, strategic planning for human security, and the role of information technology in emergency response.