Brown Cover OP 43 - The Watson Institute for International Studies

CHAPTER 1
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
The links between humanitarian action and conflict are very
old. Nonetheless, discussion of the topic is comparatively recent
and often assumes that there is something new about post-Cold
War conflicts that renders the conflict connection particularly
significant. Since the beginning of modern humanitarian practice
in the 19 th century, however, humanitarian actors have been
faced with the fact that their actions might affect the course of
conflict and might influence the outcome. They have struggled
with differing views about whether this connection should be a
matter of legitimate concern and on the appropriateness of
neutrality itself.
Concern over the conflict connection was evident in World
War I, when the Entente powers feared that some assistance
provided by Belgian Relief Commission (BRC) to civilian victims
in Belgium and German-occupied France would be diverted to
the German military. In fact, British approval and funding of the
relief program was conditioned on “stopping the leaks.” The
British were also adamant that the independence of BRC personnel
and their freedom of movement in the field be maintained,
since otherwise the Germans could exercise control over distribution
(see Box 1.1). The BRC’s work in Belgium is a striking
example of maintaining impartiality and neutrality in very
demanding political circumstances and of controlling the impacts
of humanitarian action on conflict. 1 As was noted in the
companion monograph on the interaction between humanitarian
action and politics, 2 this success was itself crucial in maintaining
access to vulnerable populations in German-occupied
Belgium.
In the Spanish Civil War, by contrast, there was little pretense
of impartiality and neutrality among the many humanitarian
actors that responded to the conflict. With a few exceptions, such
as ICRC and the Society of Friends [Quakers], 3 humanitarian
agencies worked on one side of the conflict or the other. “While
Fascist states supported Franco, the Soviet Union, civil society
and the political Left in Western democracies aided the Republic.”
4 They did so largely in solidarity with one or the other cause,
1