A legal perspective of cooperation between military and humanitarian organizations in peace support operations

Abstract

Cooperation between military and humanitarian organizations within the traditional legal framework is not new, and goes back to the 1964 Convention on the Amelioration of the Wounded in Armies in the Field. When cooperation is based on the legal conventions it is uncontroversial. But there has been a shift in the interpretation and practice of cooperation that goes beyond this legal framework. The article examines a matrix of options for areas of cooperative activity, determined by levels of military action and intensity of cooperation. Reference to such a ‘ladder of options’ should ease dilemmas in humanitarian‐military relations for situations that push beyond the current legal dispensation.