From humanitarian relief to humanitarian intervention: Victims, interveners and pillars

Current humanitarian crises are bedeviling the United Nations, relief agencies and governments. Efforts to provide food and other basic supplies to traumatized populations are frequently stymied by uncooperative regimes, violent militias, remote locations: high costs and complicated operations. As a result, humanitarian relief operations that have focused primarily on food distribution must be radically revised to encompass the much broader agenda of humanitarian intervention, which entails an aggressive, multilateral role within states. Five 'pillars' are proposed-basic needs. public security, political dialogue, human rights/justice and sustained economic development-on which to base future humanitarian interventions. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd