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Page 1: Sharing a universal ethic: The principle of humanity in war

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Sharing a universal ethic:The principle of humanityin warHugo Slim a ba Director of the Centre for Development andEmergency Practice (CENDEP)b Senior Lecturer in InternationalHumanitarianism , Oxford Brookes UniversityPublished online: 19 Oct 2007.

To cite this article: Hugo Slim (1998) Sharing a universal ethic: The principle ofhumanity in war, The International Journal of Human Rights, 2:4, 28-48, DOI:10.1080/13642989808406759

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Sharing a Universal Ethic:The Principle of Humanity in War

HUGO SLIM

This article makes the case for a much broader ownership of the principle ofhumanity in war. It observes how enshrining the principle withininstitutionalized humanitarianism has limited the ideal of humanity to aconsecrated priesthood of relief agencies and their relatively small range of reliefactivities in war. Instead, the article argues that the principle of humanity is acosmopolitan or universal ethic and so humanitarian responsibility extends to allparties involved in war and with war. To illustrate this, the article uses the ideaof stakeholder analysis to identify the direct and indirect stakes that perpetrators,international politicians, international business and every global citizen has inwar. Having identified these stakes and the inevitable humanitarian responsibilitywhich flows from them, the article then examines the most common alibis andexcuses for avoiding such responsibility and a more prophetic form ofcontemporary humanitarianism is called for which actively challenges all themain stakeholders in war to embody the principle of humanity.

In this article, I am concerned with the universal application ofhumanitarianism's first principle - the principle of humanity.1 JeanPictet, the great ICRC lawyer who did so much to expound thephilosophy behind humanitarianism and the Red Cross movement,described this principle as the 'essential principle' of humanitarianism -'its ideal, its motivation and its objective'.2 The principle of humanity -particularly as it must be maintained in war - is the great truth whichhumanitarianism seeks to proclaim and practice as a universal principle.But rather than examining the principle itself, this article looks beyondorganized humanitarianism to see how the principle of humanity residesin the wider world of power and its moral thinking - who chooses toown it and disown it as a universal principle. In particular, I observe howthe principle of humanity is zealously kept alive by organizedhumanitarianism, yet how it is kept at bay by so many parties involved

Hugo Slim, Director of the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP),and Senior Lecturer in International Humanitarianism at Oxford Brookes University.

The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol.2, No.4 (Winter 1998) pp.28-48.PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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directly or indirectly in today's inhumanity and war. And I suggest thathumanitarianism is perhaps over-protective of the principle of humanity,while the wider world is overly neglectful of it. Beyond simplyenshrining this precious principle in law and relief work,humanitarianism should do more to set it free upon the world, completewith all the obligations it entails for politicians, fighters, big business andevery human being.

THE LIMITS OF HUMANITARIAN PRIESTHOOD

As an example of that most curious oxymoronic phenomenon - a secularreligion - international humanitarianism runs the risk of any faith. Itexhibits the strange and potentially self-defeating paradox of mixinguniversalism with exclusivity. On the one hand, humanitarianism seeksto extend its belief in the principle of humanity to all corners of theglobe. On the other hand, for reasons of orthodoxy and control, itsimultaneously maintains something of a monopoly on the principle byequating the humanitarian ideal with a relatively small range of reliefactivities administered to affected populations by its own cadre ofhumanitarian organizations. In religious terms, this paradox is thetension between prophecy and priesthood, between faith andorganization. The prophet confronts society with a truth and isconcerned with personal, social and political transformation. The priestseeks to enshrine and enact that truth in ritual and to sustain standardsof purity, membership and worship. The prophet gives offence and somelts or hardens hearts. The priest gives structure and codes of practice.The growth of any religious or quasi-religious movement and itseventual institutionalization is the gradual accommodation of these tworoles into a single institution. In such a process, the more conservativepriesthood usually wins out over the more radical prophets.3 It is theessential argument of this article that as the standard bearer of theprinciple of humanity, contemporary humanitarianism, as it has becomeincreasingly institutionalized in the modern era, has become excessivelypriestly and needs to recover some of its prophetic power if it is toextend its first principle to others.

The quasi-religious tendency of international humanitarianism toproclaim a universal message but to institutionalize the message in sucha way as to consecrate and so monopolize the messengers (humanitarianworkers and lawyers) is a mixed blessing. While it protects the greattruth of the principle of humanity, it may also constrain the moral powerof that truth and inhibit wider ownership of the principle. Preserving theprinciple of humanity in the aspic of humanitarian organizations can lead

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to a dangerous idea that while the world should become morehumanitarian it must become so through humanitarian agencies alone.This institutionalization of the principle can make internationalhumanitarianism vocal in the great principle of its faith and ardent in itsapplication in relief but somewhat miserly in the empowerment of otherswith that same principle. There are perhaps two main reasons for this.First, despite humanitarianism's universalism, humanitarians still tend tosee the principle of humanity as somehow 'theirs'. Second, because thedetermination not to give offence is the overriding ethos of thehumanitarian modus operandi with its commitment to impartiality andneutrality, the call to humanity is seldom voiced prophetically. As it hasdeveloped next to war through the centuries, humanitarian assistance ismuch more a priestly rite of cleansing and boundary setting in war thana prophetic movement of political and social challenge to war itself.

These two traits - possessiveness and priestliness - work to facilitatehumanitarian action by humanitarian agencies but are dangerous to thehigher ideal of humanity precisely because they take the pressure offothers to embrace the principle themselves and meet their ownhumanitarian obligations. These traits also lead to a related and insidiousillusion that if the world is not being humane it must somehow be thefault of the humanitarians. This factor has been extremely evident inrecent years when perhaps more ink has been spilt by or abouthumanitarians and their responsibility for death and violence than aboutthe responsibility of warlords, violent politicians and internationalnegligence or collusion in the violence of today's wars and genocides. Apowerful mix of critique by academics, politicians, the violent and themedia has been coupled with a near pandemic of self-recrimination anddoubt among humanitarians themselves. At times, this has created theabsurd impression that it is humanitarians rather than politicians, warcriminals and other powerful forces who should be in the dock fortoday's war and inhumanity.

Western humanitarianism's tendency to simultaneously proclaim andprescribe its principle belief, to be at once universal and exclusive, is thusdouble-edged. It may make good sense by ensuring that the creed is notcorrupted. The faith (in the principle of humanity) and its scriptures(international humanitarian law) has a 'guardian' in the ICRC and anincreasingly ritualized system of 'codes of conduct' and service'standards' which act to sanctify a priesthood of agencies who are pureand well versed enough to deliver humanitarianism. But the tendencytowards a humanitarian priesthood and the exclusive ownership of itsguiding principle also serves to give the impression that humanitarianismis not the preserve of non-humanitarians. This impression plays straight

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into the hands of those who have interests in seeing the principle ofhumanity kept firmly in a moral ghetto as something other than, and setapart from, the 'real world' of politics and power. Humanitarianism canthen be miscast as a particular belief of certain do-gooders rather than auniversal principle - a cleansing ritual in war and violence which theperpetrators and supporters of war are neither required nor ordained topractise. In short, the principle of humanity becomes something whichhumanitarians hold to but others do not. This surely undermines theuniversalism of the principle of humanity. One can imagine howwarlords, violent politicians, international big business, great powerpoliticians must look happily upon humanitarianism's possessive streakwhich confines the practice of its faith to its own relief rituals, so over-emphasizing the priestly side of its movement to the detriment of itsprophetic call. Such emphasis can appear to make the principle ofhumanity the responsibility of humanitarian organizations and not theresponsibility of the violent, the politically calculating and theprofiteering. But as this article will argue, and as humanitarianism knowsonly too well, it is these groups above all who should take the principleof humanity to their hearts and own it as a universal principle whichcarries with it rigorous obligations.

REASSERTING HUMANITARIANISM'S PROPHETIC ELEMENT

The increasing swell of concern for humanitarian principles and theirrediscovery by relief agencies in recent years has produced something ofan ecumenical movement in humanitarianism today - a coming togetherof orthodox and non-conformist humanitarian traditions to agree uponthe basis of a universal faith which may differ somewhat in practice butnot in principle. The orthodox might be the Red Cross movement andwestern militaries who have long worked together on these issues andare well versed in the law and rituals of modern humanitarianism. Theincreasing NGO presence in discussions of humanitarian principles maysignal a faint breeze of prophetic ardour and non-conformism blowingthrough the process. Poorly versed in humanitarian law and diverse inrelief practice, they do however come from an actively prophetictradition. It is as if we are all heading towards some millennial equivalentof the great councils of the early church at which the Red Cross, NGOs,UN agencies, UN military forces and their donors will thrash out the finepoints of humanitarian doctrine and emerge with a powerful andestablished humanitarian orthodoxy. As a result of the encounter, thepriestly may become a bit more prophetic and the prophetic may becomea little more priestly.

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But like the early Christian councils, the notable thing aboutcontemporary councils on humanitarianism is their inwardness. They aresometimes more prone to agonize over the faith than to engage with theworld. And like humanitarian's possessiveness of its basic principle, suchinwardness and apparent doctrinal pedantry must also warm the heartsof warlords and other parties who have a stake in inhumanity, inevitablyraising the possibility that the humanitarian movement is actually justdistracted by its navel rather than waking to the new dawn of somedramatic regrouping of humanitarian values. It is, therefore, the addedconcern of this article to urge that the new ecumenical movement inhumanitarianism today should be as much concerned with addressing theworld in which humanitarianism finds itself as with agreeing the wordswith which to describe itself. Equally, it is essential that any newhumanitarian movement should not be possessive with the importantprinciple of humanity but rather should be determined to be generouswith it, to lavish it upon others rather than keep it to itself. This is aprinciple and a responsibility which we can and must lay upon others.Like the parable of the talents, we should not be overly protective of thegreat principle we have been given by burying it in our own institutionsand mandates but instead make interest on it by investing it fiercely inthe affairs and in the consciences of others. Post-modern humanitarianismmust play the prophet alongside the priest. We must constantly challengethose engaged in inhumanity with the principle of humanity. We mustactively affirm that it is not only organized humanitarianism which needsto embody and implement the humanitarian principle.

As a universal principle, humanity must be upheld by all actors in andaround today's political violence and war. It is not solely the concern ofrelief agencies and human rights groups. It is also a concern of warlords,international business, politicians, arms dealers, drug dealers and everymember of every society. As the Red Cross has always worked topersuade soldiers, governments and warring parties of the principle, sotoo should the new humanitarian movement now work to persuade thepatrons and the perpetrators of today's violence of the value andobligations of the principle of humanity and of the fact that they, and notjust relief agencies, are bound to apply it in their affairs. Finally, as anessential part of this new zeal to extend responsibility for the principleof humanity to all parties in and behind today's violence, post-modernhumanitarianism should fend off attempts (from within and without) tomake it shoulder excessive blame for the tragedy and confusion intoday's wars. There is easily enough blame to go around. To engage insome new ritual of scape-goating humanitarianism in every war does notreflect the facts and will serve only to undermine the principle of

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humanity - which is why, of course, some groups have an interest indoing so.

So how can we be more prophetic and so sting the consciences ofothers with the principle of humanity? In order to spread the principleof humanity beyond humanitarianism, it is first necessary to identify thewider target. In what follows, I will attempt to identify the moralstakeholders in today's violence and war, explore the nature of theirhumanitarian responsibility in such situations and then suggest howthese particular parties might actively embody and pursue the principleof humanity.

WHO ELSE HAS HUMANITARIAN RESPONSIBILITIES IN WAR?

Stakeholder analysis, like log-framework analysis, has become de rigueurin contemporary development and humanitarian work. Donors like theBritish government's Department for International Development (DFID)and the European Commission's Humanitarian Office (ECHO) lovesuch project management tools because they so effectively 'out' thevarious interests, power relations and objectives of any programme andso make the levels of impact and the lines of accountability more clearlydrawn. Similarly, albeit in general terms, it might be useful to approachthe question of humanitarian responsibility in today's violence usingstakeholder analysis and its ideas of primary and secondary stakeholders,their relative importance and the different priority which should begiven to each one of them.4 Having identified these stakeholders we canthen lay responsibility for the principle of humanity more directly attheir door.

Great strides have been made in the last few years towards gainingwhat Richards has called a more 'fine grained' understanding of thecauses and nature of the violence in today's civil wars.5 Analysis hasmoved well beyond the spectacular general theories for all wars putforward by Kaplan and Huntington and encapsulated in their respectiveslogans (the 'coming anarchy' and 'the clash of civilisations'), towards amore detailed analysis of every war as developed by more penetratingand particular observers.6 These more penetrating theories have twomain themes in common. First is the unpleasant fact of the political andeconomic logic and rationality of violence. Second is the peculiarlyintricate dance between global and local interests in such wars. Whatemerges is a picture of exceedingly violent political and economicstrategies which play upon the fear of loss in those marginalized at theperiphery of globalization while also playing into the greed of thoseplaced securely at its core. In the 1950s language of Kenneth Waltz the

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violence of today's wars has both 'immediate causes' within particularsocieties and 'permissive causes' within the wider fabric of theinternational system - those local things which start and drive war andthose global dynamics which permit and even facilitate that war.7 Or inthe language of the Catholic Church, violence is the terrible (butinevitable) coming together of 'personal sin' and 'social sin' whichcombine to make a 'structure of sin'.8

Thus personal violence and structural violence are morally distinctbut functionally one - they work together to bring about war andinhumanity. The ore of personal violence is fired in the searing heat ofsocial, economic and political forces to become hardened and sharpenedinto extreme acts of individual inhumanity well beyond the limits of itsoriginal metal. And here, in this old distinction between the personal andthe social, we may perhaps find our primary and secondary stakeholdersin today's violence. A member of a Liberian faction, Hutu extremistgroup or terrorist organization in northern Ireland who pulls a trigger,wields a machete or presses a button to murder a child may be theprimary and immediate cause of that child's death, but there are otherpeople, other organizations and other policies which can be said tomould a wider structure which acts as a secondary or permissive cause.This wider structure - which is essentially the moral and politicaleconomy of a particular war9 - 'permits' them to murder (as per Waltz)or 'cooperates' in their action directly or indirectly (as per Vatican) sothat each part of that structure also has a stake in such violence. Wemight talk of these parts - whether they be organizations, policies orglobal trends - as having a moral stake in such violence and so of theiralso having a direct humanitarian responsibility in the face of itsinhumanity, the trail of which leads directly, if somewhat elliptically, totheir door. Tracking this trail between the primary and secondary causesof war is by no means a new pursuit. Peace studies and arms tradecampaigners have been doing it for years. Marxism has been doing it formore than a century and now (although I am sure there is no connectionbetween the two!). The British government is also doing it by taking upthe idea of conflict-impact assessment alongside Oxfam and their CutConflict Campaign in an effort to uncover international connections inthe structure of violence.10

So how is specific violence structured in the many wars to whichhumanitarianism seeks to respond and who might be the moralstakeholders in such personal and structural violence? I have neither thespace nor the knowledge to answer these questions in detail and so willrestrict myself to making some general suggestions and identifying somebroad categories of moral stakeholders. My categories will inevitably

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overlap because, as every investor knows, one usually holds a portfolioof shares so that the same investor may hold stakes in different andcompeting stocks. Indeed, portfolios can be so diverse that a miningcompany which trades with, and so supports, a violent faction may alsohave a stake in a humanitarian NGO for whom its UK staff do charityruns. As such, the following section will be a rather general moralinventory of those parties who are not humanitarian agencies but whonevertheless have, but currently largely ignore, enormous humanitarianstakes and responsibilities in war. But first, before passing judgement,apportioning blame and urging wider humanitarian obligations, it isnecessary to understand the nature of moral responsibility itself and theethical yardstick against which such stakeholders must be judged. A littleneeds to be said, therefore, about moral responsibility and cosmopolitanethics.

THE NATURE OF MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

In general terms, one can have direct or indirect responsibility for one'sown actions and the way they relate to the actions of others. Equally, onecan be held responsible for something by virtue of what one did (an actof commission) or what one failed to do (an act of omission). To use theextreme example, if Jim kills John then Jim is directly responsible forJohn's murder by an act of commission. But if, instead, Dick killed Johnbut did so with some kind of co-operation from Jim who lured John tothe spot and so deliberately put him in harm's way, then Dick is directlyresponsible for John's death but Jim can be judged as indirectlyresponsible by an act of commission which in this case was his co-operation. If, however, Dick killed John and David could have stoppedhim but failed to do so, then while Dick is still directly responsible,David is indirectly responsible but by an act of omission rather thancommission.

Responsibility - both direct and indirect - can be diminished by twomain factors: coercion and ignorance. First, if one is genuinely forced todo something against one's will then one's responsibility for that actionis reduced. For example, if Jim killed John but only because Davidthreatened to kill Jim's children if he did not do so, then Jim'sresponsibility for that murder, although direct, can be said to bediminished by David's coercion. Second, one's responsibility for anaction is diminished on the basis of what one does not know whenacting. Thus, if Jim had genuinely not known that he was luring Johninto a place of danger where Dick would kill John, then Jim'sresponsibility for John's death can be said to be diminished in moral

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terms. These basic principles of moral responsibility will be used as thekey determinants in the analysis of moral stakeholders which follows.

A COSMOPOLITAN THEORY OF ETHICS

But to what will these stakeholders be held responsible? Here we enterthe fray of whether or not international society can be held to accountto a moral system akin to that of a state society. In other words, can werealistically expect the great principle of humanity to extend equallyacross the globe and entail equal obligations as it does so? Or isinternational society morally different from national society?Humanitarianism, by propounding a universal principle, embodies whatis known in the trade as a cosmopolitan ethic - in other words an ethicwhich, it is claimed, applies equally to all citizens ('polites') of the world('cosmos'). Without rehearsing all the arguments in the perennialphilosophical feud between realist and cosmopolitan ethics, I will simplycompare the views of Jean-Jaques Rousseau with those of Nigel Dowerto illustrate the difference.

In his Discourse on Political Economy published in 1755, the greatSwiss political philosopher Jean-Jaques Rousseau made the followingobservation:

It seems as though our feelings of humanity evaporate and weakenas they extend across the earth, as though we cannot be as sensitiveto calamities in Tartary or Japan as to those that are suffered by aEuropean people. Concern and compassion have in some way to belimited and compressed, in order that they should be active. And asthese inclinations of ours can be useful only to those with whomwe live, it is good that the feeling of humanity should so beconcentrated among fellow-citizens that in them it takes onrenewed strength, because of their habitual meetings and thecommon interest that unites them.11

While obviously at odds with his later compatriot, Henri Dunant,Rousseau's views are fairly typical of what is usually called the realistposition regarding international morality. Although Rousseau himselfwas a great idealist, he was also very realistic about the mountain whichidealism had to climb and so, like many others, imagined very real limitsto international idealism. The idea in this quote that our morality and itsobligations disperse in proportion to distance, loyalty and nationalinterest is probably still the dominant view in contemporary politics andbusiness despite the espoused universalism inherent in internationalorganizations like the United Nations and its international human rights

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instruments. It is against such a limited realist morality that the principleof humanity needs to assert itself if it is to make its claim upon the moralstakeholders outlined below, most of whom are distinguished by theirhard-nosed realism. To do so effectively, it must make its theoretical caseas a (possibly the) cosmopolitan ethic and then make a practical case thatsuch a principle is potentially operational and so can indeed 'extend'rather than simply 'evaporate' across the earth.

The theoretical position behind a cosmopolitan ethic is excellentlyand concisely presented by Nigel Dower in his recent article onInternational Relations and Human Rights.12 Dower usefully defines auniversalist or cosmopolitan ethic as one 'which asserts that all humanbeings belong to the same moral realm, sphere, domain or, one mightsay, universe'.13 And he goes on to spell out the implications of such anethic:

Such a view asserts that, allowing for some legitimate variations insocial values, at a basic level moral values are (that is, ought to beseen to be) the same everywhere, whether the emphasis is on rules,rights or elements of wellbeing. It also asserts that the networks ofmoral relationships, responsibilities and obligations created by thepursuit of these universal values range, in principle, over thedomain of all human beings as such.14

Thus, unlike Rousseau's evaporating ethic and its diminishingobligations, Dower holds that there is such a thing as a universal ethicand that it entails universal obligations. His article is concerned to showhow human rights are implicit in all the main fashionable western ethicaltraditions and how a cosmopolitan ethic is the only acceptable theory toaccount for moral relations internationally. His argument holds equallytrue for humanitarianism and the principle of humanity which isessentially the basis of human rights. The next section will thereforeargue that moral stakeholders involved in today's wars and politicalviolence should be judged responsible for their actions in line with theprinciple of humanity and according to a cosmopolitan moral theorywhich extends that principle unreservedly across all people. Havingestablished theoretically that it makes moral sense to hold all peopleaccountable to the principle of humanity then the mechanism for doingso in practice is, of course, international humanitarian law.

DIFFERENT MORAL STAKES

As discussed above, primary and secondary moral stakeholders incontemporary civil war might be determined on the basis of their direct

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or indirect responsibility for violence and on whether their inhumanityis very personal and immediate (as a perpetrator of violence) or morestructural and permissive (as a co-operator in violence). I will thereforeidentify the former as primary stakeholders and the latter as secondarystakeholders - while recognizing, as above, that the same person, groupor organization may simultaneously hold a portfolio of different stakesin the same war.

Primary StakeholdersThe primary moral stakeholders in the violence and inhumanity ofcontemporary civil war must be deemed to be those with the most directand immediate responsibility for that inhumanity. Such stakeholdersprobably fall into two broad groups: leaders and followers. Leaders arethose who (at whatever level) conceive, orchestrate, implement andcondone unjust and excessive violence, who spread and manipulatehatred, and who stand to gain most politically and economically fromsuch violence and division. Among their number are violent politicians,warlords and their key political, military, media and commerciallieutenants. Although the distinction is often blurred, the second groupis made up of those who follow the first and who are the rump of theperpetrators of the particular acts of inhumanity which make up theviolence. Such people are the so-called 'fighters' (though their violenceseldom involves a fight) and local administrators who effect theeconomic dispossession and social devastation inherent in much oftoday's violence.

Secondary StakeholdersSecondary moral stakeholders are perhaps made up of three groups: thesuppliers, facilitators and cultural sustainers of inhumanity. In otherwords, those who permit or co-operate with such violence at a widersystem level. The first group, suppliers, have a lucrative stake in the warwhich allows them to profit from its violence by supplying it in someway. As an increasing number of observers have shown, thesestakeholders are essentially commercial and made up of a web of local,regional and international companies.15 Most analysis to date of theinternational commercial stake in African wars has focused on theextractive industries like mining and oil, particularly in Angola, Liberiaand Sierra Leone. But, as David Keen has pointed out, a great deal of theinhumanity in contemporary civil war arises directly out of'economically motivated violence' which need not necessarily involvesuch spectacular natural resources.16 Inevitably, many of those whopursue violence for economic ends in these wars require international

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commercial links of some kind to maximize their profit through exportand investment. International companies engaging with such people arethen part of the structure of violence - providing a combination ofmarkets, financial backing, legitimacy and incentive to the inhumane. Inher analysis of the Liberian war economy, Philippa Atkinson describes itsmacro, meso and micro activities and summarizes the process ofinternational business links with sub-national violence as follows:

All large-scale extraction and export of resources takes place at themacro level, where government taxation and regulatory functionsshould apply, and where the Liberian economy is linked to theinternational economy. Many expatriate companies and individualsnow deal directly with local commandos at the meso level forextraction or buying of products, with export involving higherlevel negotiation. A share of most resource extraction or saleorganized at meso level will accrue upwards to factionalleadership...many factional associates and politicians organise theirown business ventures, forming direct partnerships withexpatriates and benefiting at the export stage.17

Such an analysis makes it patently clear that international businessinterests are a definite part of the structure of violence in manycontemporary wars, often playing a role which co-operates with, gainsfrom, encourages and supplies economically aggressive politico-militarygroupings whose modus operandi is essentially that of excessive violenceand inhumanity.

Perhaps the most obvious supplier of wars is the arms industry. Agreat deal of work has been done on tracking the official and unofficialactivities of this sector of international business. While much of theresponsibility for arming and equipping today's civil wars is regarded asdiminished by the fact that the bulk of the weapons are a legacy of theCold War and so were sold for different ends, there is still much new andongoing arms trading activity, particularly in small arms.18 Much of thistrade definitely represents new business rather than the legacy of oldbusiness. Although supplying weapons is obviously morally differentfrom firing them and killing civilians, the lucrative international armstrade and those who profit from it have a definite co-operative stake inthe violence generated by the weapons they sell.

The next group of secondary stakeholders in today's violence mightbe described as international facilitators of war - those in positions ofinternational power who make war and violence easier either bytolerating it or at least by failing to sanction it. Such facilitators aretypically those who lead international policy and decision-making -

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essentially the politicians of powerful nation states. With greater powercomes greater responsibility, and the politicians of major powers can failtheir more than usually onerous humanitarian responsibilities by acts ofcommission and omission. By resolutely putting a limited and economicdefinition of national interest at the heart of their foreign policy, majorpowers can actively encourage or give tacit blessing to the inhumanebusiness activities of their national companies or to the violent strategiesof particular national politicians who are otherwise pursuing theirpolicies or are significant trading partners. Similarly, by claiming primaryaccountability to the power of 'public opinion', many liberaldemocracies have shown a lack of international courage leading tostaggering acts of omission like the failure to respond forcefully anddeterminedly in the face of genocide in Rwanda.

Specific political decisions and policies apart, ideology itself alsofacilitates inhumanity. The predominant neo-liberal ideology of today'sworld assures a prevailing doctrine which frequently places the marketabove morality either in stark trade-offs between human rights and tradeor in the harsh debt, trading, structural adjustment and transitionpolicies which ruthlessly seek to realign poor economies with thedominant states at appalling social and economic cost to many people.19

The speed and turbulence of such social and economic engineeringmarginalizes many people and often provides opportunities for theviolence of disenchantment, profiteering and nationalism which drivesso many of today's civil wars. Although predominant, neo-liberalism isby no means the only ideology around which facilitates the particularinhumanity of today's wars. Religious fundamentalism of all kinds,ethnic nationalism, mafia ideology and totalitarianism all tolerate orlegitimate organized and excessive violence in pursuit of their vision.Ideologues of all political, religious and economic doctrines thereforehave an acute humanitarian responsibility to ensure that the wake oftheir glorious enterprise is not strewn with the carnage and inhumanityof excessive and unjust violence.

The third group of secondary stakeholders is made up of those whocontribute to a moral climate which sustains the culture of violence andhatred by internalizing the values of violence and accepting itsinhumanity, if not as good, then as necessary at least. Such sustenanceoperates locally and internationally. At a local level, people struggling tosurvive in the midst of post-modern war and its violent economy ofteninternalize its ideology and take a stake in the violence of one side oranother. Some do so more easily than others who talk of beingcompelled to become one side or the other because of the insidiousnature of the identity politics in many wars of ethnic nationalism. Their

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stakeholding might well be said to be coerced in contrast to the morevoluntary stakes taken by others, but the resulting violence which suchstakes sustain can have the same effect. Internationally, people like usliving safely beyond the reach of today's wars can also play a part insustaining these wars by similarly internalizing the violent ideology ofthe war or the realist ideology of our own governments' response to thewar. Thus we might decide to agree with our politicians, our opinionformers and our own fears which tell us that there is 'nothing we can do',that the war itself represents some sort of national psychosis which isbest left to burn itself out and would only entangle us. So we too tolerateand sustain inhumanity today. And we also have a stake in such violence,having decided that it is better for us that it continues than that wechange our lives to a degree that would make such war intolerable.

The media - whether at local or international level - can also be seento be a significant moral stakeholder with particular humanitarianresponsibilities as a shaper and sustainer of the culture of violence. Thepower it has to portray and interpret inhumanity in a particular waymeans that it is especially significant in shaping the process of howviolence and inhumanity are internalized.20 A media 'story' can eithervalidate inhumanity or challenge it. If it chooses to do the former and soexplain away inhumanity by making it somehow understandable andeven justifiable, then it plays a major part in the sustenance ofinhumanity.

Another key factor in the sustenance of inhumanity which transcendslocal and international levels alike is perhaps the maintenance of aparticular form of masculinity which permits, if not actually celebrates,a grudging, brutal and unforgiving streak in manhood. Local warriorculture and global Hollywood culture frequently collude to shape aversion of masculinity which is embittered and ignoble, a type ofmanhood which feels it has a right to violence rather than aresponsibility over it. Such abhorrent male culture has been noted inmany of today's wars and is symbolized by the tendency of many violentfactions to watch Rambo films and other Hollywood creations of that ilkwith an almost cult-like fervour as part of their 'training'.21 The creatorsand purveyors of such masculine role models have a significant moralstake in the sustenance of a violent and inhumane culture. Awakeningthem to their humanitarian responsibilities is a matter of some urgency.

ANY EXCUSES?

If these are some of the moral stakeholders in the inhumanity of today'swars, then can they plead any mitigating circumstances or diminished

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responsibility for their particular stakes? The main excuses which violentpoliticians, international business, international politicians and ordinarypeople come up with are grounded in realism. Building on distortedinterpretations of the idea of military necessity and on Rousseau's theoryof evaporating humanitarian obligations, the justification for abdicatingtheir moral responsibility in war is usually made in terms of theamorality of war, the imperative of profit and national interest, theirrelative incapacity and the complexity of globalization.

As primary stakeholders, the leaders and perpetrators of violencethemselves, if they even bother to justify their inhumanity, do so in termsof the amorality of war and the supremacy of their cause. In his analysisof the nationalism in Former Yugoslavia, Michael Ignatieff observedhow:

everyone in a nationalist war speaks in the language of fate,compulsion and moral abdication...nationalism works as avocabulary of self-exoneration. Noone is responsible for anythingbut the other side. In the moral universe of pure nationalistdelusion, all action is compelled by tragic necessity.22

Similarly, in the war in Sierra Leone, extreme acts of brutality likeamputation are somehow airbrushed out of the moral realm by theirperpetrators and emphasized instead as ritual and dramaturgical actsexpressing protest and marginalization.23 But such moral sleight of handwill not do. Neither fate nor ritual can be used as a cover for crimesagainst humanity. Although the notion of a just and humane war isdeeply paradoxical, it is not amoral. There is such a thing as a war crime,and people cannot pursue war as if they operated in some amoralrealm.24

And what about the secondary stakeholders in internationalbusiness? Just as people of excessive violence put war beyond morality,so too do many business people place commerce beyond morality. JohnKay has summarized the conventional alibi of international business:

They routinely assert that profit is the defining purpose of business,that their responsibilities to society do not extend beyond theconstraints imposed by law and regulation, and that theirobligations to their employees and customers are incidental to theirduty to their shareholders. They accept that business values aredifferent from those of other activities; they describe the natureand purpose of business in terms which would seem grotesque ifapplied to other spheres of life.25

Those business people who still believe in the unchallenged primacy of

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profit - and thankfully they are a decreasing number - would recognizeno humanitarian responsibility in the wars with which they do business.But as Kay and many others point out, such a position is immoral,increasingly absurd and even increasingly unprofitable. Business mustaim at the good like any other human endeavour. The best businesses areethical businesses and there is increasing pressure from consumers forcompanies to be ethical. While business ethics are currently seenprimarily in terms of good employment practices, ethical investment, fairtrade and environmental protection, an ethical link between business andwar is long overdue. Strangely, the connection between internationalbusiness and war only receives the attention of three out of a total of 257pages in the recently published Carnegie Commission's report onPreventing Deadly Conflict.26 This is something of an oversight whenwar economies, illegal profiteering and the instability of neo-liberaltransition are so significant in the perpetuation of violence. The report'somission probably reflects the amazing way in which powerful sectionsof the business community have succeeded in hoodwinking the westernconscience into thinking that business values are somehow immune fromnormal moral scrutiny. And if violent politicians and some sections of thebusiness community find a realist alibi to avoid humanitarianresponsibilities, so too do international politicians. They usually resort tothe claim of national interest - the state's equivalent of the selfish gene- before which all altruism melts into self interest and survival. Butnational interest can be defined in many ways - even ethically as the newLabour British Government is trying to do. It can - and should be - abroader concern than economic gain.

Running up fast alongside these conventional excuses that war isamoral, business is different and national (that is, economic) interest issupreme, is a new and rather insidious alibi which represents the mergingof chaos theory and globalization. In other words, it is a deeply 1990sexcuse! It seems to suit many people with powerful and extensive globaland/or local interests to portray globalization as a chaotic and complexprocess which is essentially autonomous and beyond the wit, design andregulation of human beings. Under such interpretations, the prevailingparadigm of international relations has moved from one of anarchy tointense complexity. The famous butterfly effect which has rightly orwrongly become the archetypal myth of chaos theory has been co-optedto justify a lack of accountability and control in political and commercialactivity around the world. The myth being that because a butterflyflapped its wings in Brazil there was a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal - orsomething to that effect. The popularization - and no doubtmisinterpretation - of such new physics has come as great consolation to

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many moral stakeholders in contemporary inhumanity for it seems to getthem off the hook. The complexity model characterizes globalization assome inevitable and mysterious destiny in the face of which we arerelatively powerless and cannot be held personally accountable. Soglobalization leads me to trade with warlords, to be inconsistent in mypolitics and ensures that I can never truly understand the relationship ofcause and effect between my global and local actions. The excuse worksas well for the Liberian warlord as it does for the international businessperson and politician, and, of course, as it does for me as an ordinaryglobal citizen. In other words, we can all claim that the world is now fartoo complicated and inter-connected to understand and that 'it was thebutterfly what done it'!

But is ignorance and moral impotence so easily affected? I doubt it.As George Steiner recently remarked, in today's world 'there is not ashred of an apologia that noone knows'.27 Indeed, the tragedy is thateveryone knows. The Rwandan genocide was televised and so was ethniccleansing in Bosnia. The humanitarian responsibility of the manystakeholders is not, therefore, diminished by ignorance. Is the problemtherefore one of incapacity? This may well be the case sometimes, but byno means always. Knowing what is wrong is indeed distinct fromknowing how to put it right or being able to put it right. And problemsof know-how and capacity are certainly the key factors in internationalrelations which arguably diminish moral responsibility. In his recentbook on toleration, Michael Walzer has lamented how 'the happycoincidence between what is intolerable and what is not tolerated isuncommon' usually because the risks involved in determined action canlegitimately deter the intervenors.28 But problems of know-how andcapacity should never stop the various stakeholders from continuouslyexamining their stakes, identifying and articulating ways in which theycan actively try to enact the principle of humanity in war and so mitigatetheir worst effects. The fundamental principle of humanity in war shouldnot be undermined by a sense of impotence and fatalism about thedifficulties, which comes to accept the status quo of excessive violence.The principle must still be proclaimed and sought after even in the faceof extreme difficulties.

EXPANDING HUMANITARIAN RESPONSIBILITY

So how can the conventional humanitarian industry work with all theseother humanitarian stakeholders to help them put the principle ofhumanity at the centre of their various stakes in war? This is whereprophets are needed more than priests. Humanitarians must once again

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find a voice with which to challenge everyone who has a stake ininhumanity so that they feel moved to turn that stake into one which ishumane. But there are many types of prophet and it is important to sendthe one which will move them most. A voice crying in the wilderness isunlikely to be the most effective for this purpose. The intention must beto mainstream the principle of humanity and not to isolate it. Thehumanitarian prophets will better be prophets who can move at the verycentre of events and penetrate the very heart of the institutionsconcerned. But they must still be prophets. They must still challenge andcall. They must not be calmed into straight priesthood by those whowould see them cordoned off again to pursue the rituals of their faithalone. Also, as we know, prophets tend to arise in unlikely places, so weshould not expect all humanitarian prophets to necessarily arise fromwithin the conventional humanitarian community. We should hope andexpect that they also emerge from the midst of each of the variousstakeholders, and conventional humanitarians should then work withthem when they do.

Humanizing the primary stakeholders - the perpetrators - is anenormous task and it must be started well before war in a way whichbuilds a culture of humanity in war and renders the inhumanity ofexcessive violence intolerable. As its modern founders knew,humanitarianism is too important to be left until war breaks out and thenset aside when it is over. Secondary stakeholders may be more amenablebut must similarly be constantly challenged. With their new hegemony inworld affairs, capitalist businesses are perhaps particularly significant aspotential humanitarians. Many businesses are now relinquishing thedoctrine that profit is all and are making serious steps towards aninternational ethic. BP is an example of a transnational company whichvalues ethics and, on paper, seems genuinely determined to be ethical.However, at present, most of its ethical code is taken up with relativelynarrow preoccupations with integrity surrounding financial transactionsand political association and with commitments to an environmentalethic.29 But its Group Chief Executive has also spoken of the importanceof BP working for human rights and trying 'to contribute to thedevelopment of civil society - establishing clear ethical standards forourselves and our contractors...ensuring that the whole of the localcommunity benefits from our presence'.30 The humanitarian challengefor such companies must be to pursue such a process in and around war,even if it means occasionally withdrawing from business.

Control Risks Group is another interesting company. As an'international political and business risk consultancy' it advises manycompanies on the risks involved in operating in many parts of the world

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where humanitarians also operate - societies affected by poverty, politicalinstability and armed conflict. Control Risks works with the idea of 'duediligence' in such situations and offers its clients a service which willscrutinize and screen the various local businesses which may be seeking ajoint venture with them. Control Risks regards this process as essentialbecause 'without a full investigation of your partner's funding, corporatehistory, business associates and litigation record, you risk dealing withbusinesses which are in financial difficulties or are involved in illegal orunethical activities'.31 The notion of due diligence is a good one and anethical one too. However, as its stands, the primary concern of the ideaand the service offered is the protection of the company rather than theprotection of people who might be affected by misguided investment andinhumane trading relations. Control Risks thus sees its mission as'advising businesses, governments and individuals how to reduce theimpact on their activities (my emphasis) of political instability, social andtechnological change, terrorism, fraud and crime'.32 It would be nice tothink that by working with humanitarian organizations, they could posethe question of impact differently and extend their service by alsoadvising their clients on the impact of their business on people livingthrough war and instability. This might help to develop a notion of whatconstitutes ethical trade in and around war. Such initiatives could build onthe idea of conflict impact assessments and familiarize the commercialsector with international humanitarian law.

If business can begin to take on the principle of humanity in war,then putting the same principle more firmly at the centre of internationalpolitics must also be possible. And if politicians can do it, then ordinarypeople can too. Indeed, politicians must do it because ordinary peopledemand it of them. The insight of the environmental movement to thinkglobally and act locally applies also to war. Each one of us can choose toown our personal humanitarian responsibilities and determine thatcertain wars are unacceptable, demanding that our politicians activelyrepresent our concern for the principle of humanity in war, if not byforce of arms then by other powerful means. Every one of us has ahumanitarian responsibility to ensure that we sustain a culture ofhumanity in war. As individuals, our humanitarian stake is probably themost easily neglected and yet the most important. While in the main, theimmorality and inhumanity of leaders, followers, suppliers andfacilitators in war is manifested directly in acts of commission, that of thesustainers is often revealed in acts of omission by a failure to challengeand resist the inhumanity of others. But challenge it we must.

To adapt a phrase, we are all humanitarians now. While humanitarianpriests and prophets are essential and their organizations are vital to provide

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humanitarian relief and protect humanitarian law, belief in the universalprinciple of humanity must reside primarily in the vast mass of humanityitself. And here, of course, is humanitarianism's greatest challenge. For theproblem with which the principle of humanity has to contend is the natureof humanity itself. In other words, humanity is humanity's own worstenemy. But as this article has tried to show, it may well be possible forhumanity to be more humane and to organize its relationship with war in away which plays to the better part of its nature as much as to the worse part.That same humanity which is capable of such terrible cruelty is also capableof extraordinary acts of compassion, selflessness, moral resolve and a thirstfor justice and hope. Putting the principle of humanity at the centre ofmilitarism, business, politics and personal idealism is to identify with thebest in humanity and to work for it in the midst of the worst of it. Surelythat should be an obvious thing to try and do. And it should be somethingfor all people and not just humanitarian workers to try and do. To be trulyeffective, the principle of humanity in war must be more widely shared andmore broadly owned as a universal principle to be applied by all thosehaving any dealings with war.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am very grateful to Jo Macrae for inviting me to prepare this paper and (not for the firsttime) to John Borton for helping me to work up something of a route map for the paperbefore embarking on it. I would also like to thank Michael Meyer for checking that mywriting remains in the spirit of international humanitarian law, if not actually abounding inthe letters and articles of its conventions and protocols.

NOTES

1. This principle is defined by the Red Cross and Red Crescent as the desire 'to preventand alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found...to protect life and healthand to ensure respect for the human being'. For my thoughts on this principle and theother humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality, see my other paper, ReliefAgencies and Moral Standing in War: Principles of Humanity, Neutrality, Impartialityand Solidarity, in Development in Practice, Vol.7, No.4.

2. J. Pictet, The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross (Geneva: Henri DunantInstitute, 1979), p.21

3. For the classic analysis of the tension between prophecy and priesthood, see MaxWeber's chapter on 'Prophets and the Routinisation of Charisma' in his 1922 workThe Sociology of Religion, and Ernst Troeltsch's distinction between sect and church inhis 1911 book The Social Teaching of the Christian Church.

4. ODA, Guidance Notes on Stakeholder Analysis of Aid Projects and Programmes, SocialDevelopment Department (London, July 1995).

5. P. Richards (1996) Fighting for the Rainforest: War, Youth and Resources in SierraLeone (Oxford: James Currey), p.1.

6. for example, D. Keen, 'War: What is it Good For?' in War, Ethnicity and the Media(London: South Bank University, 1996); M. Duffield, 'Post-Modern Conflict, Aid

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Policy and Humanitarian Conditionality', Discussion Paper for the Emergency AidDepartment, DFID, London, 1997; D. Turton, 'War and Ethnicity: GlobalConnections and Local Violence in North East Africa and Former Yugoslavia', OxfordDevelopment Studies, Vol.21, No.1 (1997); and Richards (note 5).

7. K. Waltz, Man, the State and War, 1959, extracts in M. Genest, Conflict andCooperation: Evolving Theories of International Relations (Harcourt Brace, 1996),pp.11-28.

8. Vatican, Catechism of the Catholic Church (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), paras1868 and 1869.

9. Commentators like Duffield, Keen and Atkinson have led most of us to think in termsof 'war economies' or 'political economy' as descriptions of the structural violence oftoday's civil wars. However, I feel that it is important to add a moral dimension tosuch terms in the hope that it might keep us from slipping into the moral neutrality ofmuch economic discourse. Thus I prefer the wordier phrase 'moral and politicaleconomy of war'.

10. E. Cairns, A Safer Future: Reducing the Human Cost of War (Oxford, 1997) and C.Short, cited in Cairns.

11. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Political Economy (1755), cited in C. Betts, TheSocial Contract (Oxford: Oxford University Press Worlds Classics, 1994), p.17.

12. N. Dower, 'Human Rights and International Relations', The International Journal ofHuman Rights, Vol.1, No.1 (Spring 1997), London: Frank Cass.

13. Ibid., p.87.14. Ibid.15. P. Atkinson, The War Economy in Liberia: A Political Analysis, RRN Network Paper 22

(London: ODI, 1997); Duffield (note 6); New Internationalist, No.299 (March 1998);W. Reno, Humanitarian Emergencies and Warlord Economies in Liberia and SierraLeone (UNRISD, 1997).

16. D. Keen, Adelphi Paper, The Economic Function of Violence in Civil War (London:IISS, 1998).

17. Atkinson (note 15), p.7.18. C. Louise, The Social Impacts of Light Weapons Availability and Proliferation (Geneva

and London: UNRISD, 1995); and 'Small Arms, Wrong Hands: A Case forGovernment Control of the Small Arms Trade (Oxford: Oxfam, 1998).

19. D. Mepham, 'Conflict and Development: A Challenge to Governments' in Conflictand Development: Responding to the Challenge, World Vision Discussion Paper, Spring1998.

20. 'The Peace Journalism Option', Conflict and Peace Courses, Taplow Court,Buckinghamshire 1998.

21. J. Large, 'Disintegration Conflicts and the Restructuring of Masculinity', in C.Sweetman, Men and Masculinity (Oxford: Oxfam, 1997); also Richards (note 5).

22. M. Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism, (London:Vintage, 1993), p.32.

23. Richards (note 5).24. M. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New

York: Basic Books,1977; second edition, 1992).25. J. Kay, 'Good Business', Inaugural Lecture of the Said Business School, Oxford

University, March 1998.26. Carnegie Commission, Preventing Deadly Conflict, Final Report of the Carnegie

Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict (New York: Carnegie Corporation, 1997).27. G. Steiner, 'Sounding the Century', Lecture, Radio 3, London, 21 March 1998.28. M. Walzer, On Toleration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), p.21.29. BP, What We Stand For: Our Business Policies (London: BP External Affairs and

Communications, 1998).30. J. Brown, 'Corporate Responsibility in an International Context', speech to the

Council on Foreign Relations, New York, 13 November 1997.31. Corporate Brochure, Control Risks Group, London, 1998, p.6.32. Ibid., p.8.

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