The “Phantom Local” and the Everyday Distinction Practices of Humanitarian Actors in War: A Socio-Legal Perspective

ABSTRACT

This article is concerned the everyday practices of international humanitarian actors who deliver assistance in armed conflict zones. Drawing on original fieldwork conducted in South Sudan, it elucidates how humanitarian actors engage with the principle of distinction in international humanitarian law (IHL). The article considers how the desire to enforce distinction impacts humanitarian actors’ relationships with others, and introduces the concept of everyday distinction practices. These practices have an important performance component, designed to appease the “phantom local.” It is proposed that such practices may have adverse implications for the humanitarian–beneficiary encounter. By positioning war-affected populations as an audience for distinction, everyday distinction practices reconfigure the victims of war from being receivers of aid to perceivers of aid. By lumping beneficiaries together with armed actors as part of the “phantom local,” distinction practices also paint the victims of war as an object of mistrust, fear, and potential danger.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Udan Fernando and Dorothea Hilhorst, “Everyday Practices of Humanitarian Aid: Tsunami Response in Sri Lanka,” Development in Practice 16:3/4 (2006), pp. 292–302; Anais Aresseguier, “The Moral Sense of Humanitarian Actors: An Empirical Exploration,” Disasters 42:1 (2018), pp. 62–80; Severine Autessere, Peaceland: Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

² Fieldwork was conducted in August and September 2015 in South Sudan. One-hundred and thirteen interviews were conducted in and around Protection of Civilians (PoC) sites in the capital Juba, in Central Equatoria state; Bor, in Jonglei State; and Bentiu, in Unity State.

³ As discussed in Lilie Chouliaraki, The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2012), Chapter 2, “The Humanitarian Imaginary.”

⁴ Mark Drumbl, Re-imagining Child Soldiers (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 9.

⁵ See Marcus Dubber, “Critical Analysis of Law: Interdisciplinarity, Contextuality, and the Future of Legal Studies” (June 2012), available online at: http://individual.utoronto.ca/dubber/CAL.pdf.

⁶ Kjersti Lohne and Kristin Bergtora Sandvik, “Legal Sociology of Humanitarianism,” Oslo Law Review 4:1 (2017), pp. 4–27.

⁷ Michael N. Barnett, “Humanitarian Governance,” Annual Review of Political Science 16:1 (2013), pp. 379–98 (designating humanitarian studies as a field).

⁸ See, for example, Liisa H. Malkki, The Need to Help (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015); David Moss (ed.), Adventures in Aidland (New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 2013); Silke Roth, Passionate Professionals: The Paradoxes of Aid Work (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2015); Monika Krause, The Good Project: Humanitarian NGOs and the Fragmentation of Reasons (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2014).

⁹ Alex de Waal, Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa (Oxford, UK: James Currey, 1997). See also Fernando and Hilhorst, “Everyday Practices of Humanitarian Aid”; Aresseguier, “The Moral Sense of Humanitarian Actors”; Autessere, Peaceland.

¹⁰ See Kai Koddenbrock, The Practice of Humanitarian Intervention: Aid Workers, Agencies, and Institutions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016), pp. 59, 68; Zoe Marriage, Not Breaking the Rules Not Playing the Game: International Assistance to Countries at War (London, UK: Hurst, 2006), p. 10.

¹¹ Lohne and Sandvik, “Legal Sociology of Humanitarianism,” p. 5.

¹² See for example: Claudie Barrat, Status of NGOs in International Humanitarian Law (Leiden, UK: Brill Nijhoff, 2014); Johanna Grombach Wagner, “An IHL/ICRC Perspective on ‘Humanitarian Space,’” Humanitarian Exchange Magazine 32 (December 2005), pp. 24-26.

¹³ On the need for a legal sociology of humanitarianism see Lohne and Sandvik, “Legal Sociology of Humanitarianism.”

¹⁴ David Cowan, Linda Mulcahy, and Sally Wheeler (eds), “Introduction,” in David Cowan, Linda Mulcahy, and Sally Wheeler (eds), Major Works in Socio-Legal Studies (London, UK: Routledge, 2013), p. 5.

¹⁵ Paraphrasing Cowan, Mulcahy, and Wheeler, “Introduction,” p. 5.

¹⁶ As discussed in Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns, “The Great Divide: Forms of Legal Scholarship and Everyday Life,” in Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns (eds), Law in Everyday Life (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1993), p. 60.

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ Ibid., 29, 32.

¹⁹ Ibid., 55.

²⁰ Ibid., 55.

²¹ Ibid.

²² Article 48 of Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, June 8, 1977, 1125 UNTS 3, Can TS 1991 No. 1 (AP I); See also Article 52 of AP I.

²³ Prosecutor v. Blaskic, ICTY Appeals Chamber, July 29, 2004, para. 109; Prosecutor v. Galic, ICTY Appeals Chamber, November 30, 2006, para. 130.

²⁴ Humanitarian assistance is defined here as the provision humanitarian relief, namely humanitarian and protection assistance involving food, water, sanitation, shelter, health services, as well as humanitarian coordination. Article 71(2) of AP I, supra; UN General Assembly, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, July 17, 1998, ISBN No. 92-9227-227-6, last amended 2010.

²⁵ There is a debate on whether IHL protects humanitarian actors “as civilians” or as “humanitarians.” Compare Helen Durham and Phoebe Wynn-Pope, “Protecting the ‘Helpers’: Humanitarians and Health Care Workers During Times of Armed Conflict,” Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 14:1 (2011), pp. 327–46 with Larissa Fast, Aid in Danger: The Perils and Promise of Humanitarianism (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), p. 197.

²⁶ Jean D’Aspremont, “From a Pluralization of International Norm-Making Processes,” in Joost Pauwelyn, Ramses A. Wessel, and Jan Wouters (eds), Informal International Lawmaking (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012), Chapter 8, p. 194.

²⁷ See Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

²⁸ This departs from other definitions of the humanitarian field by emphasizing IHL and the distinctions between humanitarian and nonhumanitarian actors. See also Lohne and Sandvik, “Legal Sociology of Humanitarianism,” pp. 10–11, 15; Krause, Good Project, p. 6.

²⁹ See also Fast, Aid in Danger, p. 8; Roth, Paradoxes of Aid, p. 91.

³⁰ On “competent performances” see Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot (eds), International Practices (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 6, 15.

³¹ See, for example: Peter Walker and Catherine Russ, “Fit for Purpose: The Role of Modern Professionalism in Evolving the Humanitarian Endeavour,” International Review of the Red Cross 93:884 (2011), pp. 1193–1210.

³² Tony Vaux, “Humanitarian Trends and Dilemmas,” Development in Practice 16:3-4 (2006), pp. 240–54.

³³ See Lisa Ann Richey and Lilie Chouliaraki, “Everyday Humanitarianism: Ethics, Affects and Practices; Special Issue Call for Papers,” New Political Science 39:2 (2017), pp. 314–16. But see Marc-Antoine Perouse de Montclos, “The (de)Militarization of Humanitarian Aid: A Historical Perspective,” Humanities 3:1 (2014), pp. 232–43 (arguing these trends are not new).

³⁴ A Hidden Fault-Line: How International Actors Engage with IHL’s Principle of Distinction,” in Mats Deland et al. (eds), International Humanitarian Law and Justice: Historical and Sociological Perspectives (London, UK: Routledge, 2018), Chapter 7.

³⁵ ICRC Report, “Respect for and Protection of the Personnel of Humanitarian Organizations,” ICRC Resource Centre (September 19, 1998). See also Preamble to the Red Cross Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Disaster Relief, 1996.

³⁶ UN OCHA, Civil-Military Coordination Handbook (OCHA, 2015), Geneva, CH: available online at: https://www.unocha.org/sites/unocha/files/CMCoord%20Field%20Handbook%20v1.0_Sept2015_0.pdf.

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ The Sphere Project: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Diaster Response (Rugby, UK; Practical Action Publishing, 2011).

³⁹ Ibid., 20.

⁴⁰ CARE International, Policy Framework for CARE International's Relations with Military Forces (Geneva, CH: CARE International, 2009).

⁴¹ South Sudan Civil-Military Advisory Group, “Guidelines for the Coordination between Humanitarian Actors and the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS)” UN OCHA (December 6, 2013), available online at: http://www.unocha.org/sites/dms/Documents/A05%20Guidelines%20for%20the%20Coordination%20between%20Humanitarian%20Actors%20and%20the%20UNMISS.pdf.

⁴² UN OCHA, “Frequently Asked Questions: UN Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination, Military Civil Defense Assets and the Use of Military Escorts in South Sudan,” (Humanitarian Civil-Military Guidelines).

⁴³ Ibid.

⁴⁴ Peacekeepers may be categorized as civilians or combatants, depending on a number of factors.

⁴⁵ See Anne Vestergaard, “Humanitarian Branding and the Media: The Case of Amnesty International,” Copenhagen Business School, Working Paper No.81 (2006); A. Cooley and J. Ron, “The NGO Scramble: Organizational Insecurity and the Political Economy of Transnational Action,” International Security 27 (2002), pp. 5–39; Hugo Slim, “Marketing Humanitarian Space: Argument and Method in Humanitarian Persuasion,” Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (May 2003). See also Krause, Good Project, p. 48; Koddenbrock, Practice of Humanitarian Intervention, pp. 56, 63; James, “Downsides of Porfessionalization,” p. 192.

⁴⁶ Inspired by phantom figures in sources such as: Walter Lippman, The Phantom Public (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2006 (1926)); Rossner et al., The Process and Dynamics of Restorative Justice: Research on Forum Sentencing (Sydney, AU: University of Western Sydney, 2013), p. 43; David Kennedy, The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 29.

⁴⁷ On donors and media as audiences, see, for example, Cooley and Ron, “NGO Scramble”; Krause, Good Project, p. 48; Koddenbrock, Practice of Humanitarian Intervention, pp. 56–57.

⁴⁸ Fast, Aid in Danger, p. 3.

⁴⁹ Ibid.

⁵⁰ Hugo Slim, Humanitarian Ethics: A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster (London, UK: Hurst and Company, 2015), p. 73.

⁵¹ Rebecca Sutton and Orly Stern, “International Humanitarian Law,” in Tim Allen, Hendry Radice, and Anna MacDonald (eds), Humanitarianism: A Dictionary of Concepts (London, UK: Routledge, 2018).

⁵² See also Krause, Good Project, pp. 43–44 (on those who are not served).

⁵³ See, for example, Caroline Abu-Sada (ed.), In the Eyes of Others: How People in Crises Perceive Humanitarian Aid (New York, NY: Medecins Sans Frontieres, 2012); Caroline Abu-Sada Dilemmas, Challenges, and Ethics of Humanitarian Action: Reflections on Medecins Sans Frontieres Perception Project (Montreal, CAN: McGill-Queens University Press, 2012); Antonio Donini et al., “Mapping the Security Environment: Understanding the Perceptions of Local Communities, Peace Support Operations, and Assistance Agencies,” Feinstein International Famine Centre (June 2005), pp. 1-96.

⁵⁴ Caroline Abu-Sada, “Introduction,” in Caroline Abu-Sada (ed.), Dilemmas, Challenges, and Ethics of Humanitarian Action, p. 5. Hugo Slim, “How We Look: Perceptions of Humanitarian Action,” Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Presentation (April 2004), available online at: http://www.hugoslim.com/Pdfs/How%20We%20Look.pdf.

⁵⁵ Lisa Schirch, “Research Gaps on Civil-Military Policy Trends,” Humanitarian Practice Network (May 2014), available online at: http://www.odihpn.org/humanitarian-exchange-magazine/issue-61/research-gaps-on-civil–military-policy-trends.

⁵⁶ On cognitive dissonance in humanitarian practice more broadly, see Marriage, Not Breaking the Rules.

⁵⁷ As noted during field observations in South Sudan.

⁵⁸ For an overview of the PoC sites see: Damian Lilly, “Protection of Civilians Sites: A New Type of Displacement Settlement?” Humanitarian Exchange Magazine (2014).

⁵⁹ Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), “Civil-Military Guidelines and Reference for Complex Emergencies,” UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (New York, NY: OCHA, 2008), p. 10.

⁶⁰ IFRC, available online at: http://www.ifrc.org/en/who-we-are/vision-and-mission/the-seven-fundamental-principles/neutrality/.

⁶¹ IFRC, available online at: http://www.ifrc.org/en/who-we-are/vision-and-mission/the-seven-fundamental-principles/impartiality/. See also Article 70(1) of AP I; Article 18(2) of AP II.

⁶² Jean Pictet, The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross, Commentary (Geneva, CH: Henry Dunant Institute, 1979), pp. 61–62.

⁶³ See Peter Walker, “Cracking the Code: The Genesis, Use and Future of the Code of Conduct,” Disasters 29:4 (2005), pp. 323–36; Dorothea Hilhorst, “Dead Letter or Living Document? Ten Years of the Code of Conduct for Disaster Relief,” Disasters 29:4 (2005), pp. 351–69.

⁶⁴ Katherine Davies, Continuity, Change and Contest: Meanings of “Humanitarian” from the Religion of Humanity to the Kosovo War (London, UK: Humanitarian Policy Group, 2012); Urvashi Aneja-Bod, “Contesting the Humanitarian Regime in Political Emergencies: International NGO Policies and Practices in Sri Lanka & Afghanistan, 1990–2010” (Unpublished DPhil Thesis, 2013), p. 7; de Waal, Famine Crimes, p. 135.

⁶⁵ On the Dunantist/Wilsonian typology see: Abby Stoddard, “Humanitarian NGOs: Challenges and Trends,” Overseas Development Institute Humanitarian Policy Group, No. 12 (July 2003).

⁶⁶ Discussed also in Koddenbrock, Practice of Humanitarian Intervention, pp. 57, 63.

⁶⁷ Joost Herman, “International Law and the Humanitarian Space in the Twenty-First Century: Challenged Relationships,” in Andrew J. Zwitter et al. (eds), Humanitarian Action: Global Regional and Domestic Legal Responses (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 11–32.

⁶⁸ Fernando and Hilhorst, “Everyday Practices of Humanitarian Aid,” p. 300.

⁶⁹ Nicholas Leader, “Proliferating Principles; or How to Sup with the Devil without Getting Eaten,” Disasters 22:4 (September 1998), pp. 288–308.

⁷⁰ Slim, Humanitarian Ethics, p. 73.

⁷¹ As per Urvashi Aneja-Bod, “Contesting the Humanitarian Regime.” On the legal status of the humanitarian principles, compare Harvard Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, “Humanitarian Action under Scrutiny: Criminalizing Humanitarian Engagement,” Harvard Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research Working Paper (2011), p. 4 (the principles are an IHL requirement), with Koddenbrock, Practice of Humanitarian Intervention, p. 63 (the principles could be termed slogans).

⁷² Kate Mackintosh, “Beyond the Red Cross: The Protection of Independent Humanitarian Organizations and their Staff in International Humanitarian Law,” International Review of the Red Cross 89:865 (2007), pp. 113–30; Daniel Thurer, “Dunant’s Pyramid: Thoughts on the Humanitarian Space,” International Review of the Red Cross 89:865 (2007), p. 55.

⁷³ Laura Hammond, “The Power of Holding Humanitarianism Hostage and the Myth of the Protective Principles,” in Michael Barnett and Thomas Weiss (eds), Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008), pp. 172–95.

⁷⁴ Fast, Aid in Danger, p. 111.

⁷⁵ Hilhorst, “Dead Letter,” p. 358.

⁷⁶ Thurer, “Dunant’s Pyramid,” p. 60.

⁷⁷ Baptiste Rolle and Edith Lafontaine, “The Emblem that Cried Wolf: ICRC Study on the Use of Emblems,” International Review of the Red Cross 91:876 (2009), p. 763.

⁷⁸ Ibid., 763.

⁷⁹ Ibid., 759, 761.

⁸⁰ Ibid., 760–61.

⁸¹ Mackintosh, “Beyond the Red Cross,” p. 126.

⁸² Linda Polman, War Games: The Story of Aid and War in Modern Times (London, UK: Viking, 2011), p. 20.

⁸³ Nicholas Stockton, “In Defence of Humanitarianism,” Disasters 22:4 (1998), pp. 352–60.

⁸⁴ Lisa Smirl, Spaces of Aid: Post Disaster Relief and Reconstruction (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015), Chapter 3; Mackintosh, “Beyond the Red Cross.”

⁸⁵ Smirl, Spaces of Aid, p. 129; Silke Roth, “Aid Work as Edgework: Voluntary Risk-Taking and Security in Humanitarian Assistance, Development and Human Rights Work,” Journal of Risk Research 18:2 (2015), pp. 139–55.

⁸⁶ Hammond, “Myth of the Protective Principles.” Discussed also in Roth, Paradoxes of Aid, p. 32.

⁸⁷ Smirl, Spaces of Aid, p. 95.

⁸⁸ Antonio Donini, “Afghanistan: Humanitarianism under Threat,” Feinstein International Centre Briefing (2009), available online at: http://fic.tufts.edu/publication-item/afghanistan-humanitarianism-under-threat/.

⁸⁹ Roth, Paradoxes of Aid, p. 9.

⁹⁰ Krause, Good Project, pp. 40–44.

⁹¹ Ibid., 40.

⁹² Stephen Hopgood, The Endtimes of Human Rights (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014), p. 38.

⁹³ Ibid., 38.

⁹⁴ Ibid., 384.

⁹⁵ Ibid., 37.

⁹⁶ Krause, Good Project, pp. 113, 144.

⁹⁷ Building on a point made in Didier Fassin, “Inequality of Lives, Hierarchies of Humanity: Moral Commitments and Ethical Dilemmas of Humanitarianism,” in Ilana Feldman and Miriam Ticktin (eds), In the Name of Humanity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), pp. 239–55.

⁹⁸ Fassin, Inequality of Lives.

⁹⁹ See Fast, Aid in Danger, p. 5.

¹⁰⁰ Walker and Russ, “Fit for Purpose,” p. 1210.

¹⁰¹ See Silke Roth, “Professionalisation, Trends and Inequality: Experiences and Practices in Aid Relationships,” Third World Quarterly 33:8 (2012), pp. 1459–74.

¹⁰² Lilie Chouliaraki, “'Improper Distance’: Towards a Critical Account of Solidarity as Irony,” International Journal of Cultural Studies 14:4 (2011), pp. 363–81.

¹⁰³ Eric James, “The Professional Humanitarian and the Downsides of Porfessionalization,” Disasters 40:2 (2016), pp. 185–206.

¹⁰⁴ Didier Fassin, “Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life,” Public Culture 19:3 (2007), pp. 499–520.

¹⁰⁵ Ibid., 507. Citing Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998).

¹⁰⁶ Ibid.

¹⁰⁷ Monique J. Beerli, “Saving the Saviors: Security Practices and Professional Struggles in the Humanitarian Space,” International Political Sociology 12:1 (2018), pp. 70–87.

¹⁰⁸ Ibid.

¹⁰⁹ Mark Duffield, “The Fortified Aid Compound,” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 4:4 (2010), p. 471; Roth, Paradoxes of Aid, p. 183; Beerli, “Saving the Saviors,” p. 70.

¹¹⁰ Hilhorst, “Dead Letter,” p. 361.

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Rebecca Sutton

Rebecca Sutton is a Canadian lawyer, Trudeau Scholar and SSHRC Scholar, based at the London School of Economics (LSE) in the UK. In 2018, she will complete a doctoral project on humanitarian practice and International Humanitarian Law. In 2018–2019, she is a post-doctoral researcher on the Individualization of War Project at the University of Oxford and the European University Institute. Rebecca holds a JD from the University of Toronto and an MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development from SOAS. She was called to the Ontario bar in 2013 after clerking at the Ontario Court of Appeal. Rebecca previously worked in the humanitarian field, serving as Country Director for War Child Canada in Darfur, Sudan from 2009 to 2011. Her research has been published in the National Journal of Constitutional Law, Criminal Law Quarterly, Citizenship Studies, Refuge, and the Canadian Graduate Journal of Sociology and Criminology.