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NORGLOBAL2-Norge - global partner

Aid in Crisis? Rights-Based Approaches and Humanitarian Outcomes

Alternative title: AIDinCRISIS

Awarded: NOK 6.0 mill.

The human rights framework is a cornerstone of Norwegian foreign policy, including its humanitarian policy. Humanitarian action is based on principles of neutrality and impartiality. Human rights is about justice, politics and redistribution. How do the two go together? The rights-based approach to aid has been characterized by confusion as to the meaning and proper operationalization of rights in the humanitarian context. In the last decade, conversations among donors, organizations and practitioners have shifted towards technology and innovation, and on the need to integrate the humanitarian, development and security fields. These shifts have been incorporated into the new Norwegian humanitarian policy from 2018. Despite this, rights-based approaches are still a part of the toolbox. The project has explored how Norwegian actors understand, engage with and attempt to implement rights-based approaches in Norway and in a cluster of countries that have been important recipients of Norwegian aid funding: Colombia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Palestine and South-Sudan. On a more general level, we have considered how the classification of aid as humanitarian aid functions as a form of soft power. We have focused on the life cycle of rights-based approaches from their articulation in policy to how they are appropriated, resisted and adapted by NGOs and implemented in the field. This way, the project also sheds light on the afterlife of buzzwords in the humanitarian field. The project has also explored the increasing engagement with technology, digitization and innovation and attendant ethics challenges in the humanitarian field. The project has made important conceptual contributions and contributed to agenda setting on ethics discussions in the humanitarian field, for example through the discussion of humanitarian experimentation or how digitization may invisibilize vulnerable groups. While the project has made significant contributions to policy-discussions on humanitarian ethics, we conclude on an ambivalent note: ethics produce few obligations and sanctions and are weak on delivering rights to beneficiaries of aid. While rights-based approaches are loosely based on international law, the humanitarian sector is going through a rapid period of hard legalization and juridification that is neither understood or acted upon by the Norwegian government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Norwegian humanitarian sector. Specifically, this concerns legislation on procurement, anti-corruption, anti-terror, labor law, and the criminalization of the protection of civilians. The almost complete absence of lawyers in the Norwegian humanitarian sector and insufficient interest in building this competence may have severe ramifications for the implementation of Norwegian humanitarian policy and increase risk for Norwegian actors going forward.

Outcomes include furthering the humanitarian studies as an academic subdiscipline (See special issue on Humanitarian governance in Disasters) and a subfield of the legal and political sociology of humanitarian action; a better understanding of the ongoing legalization and juridifcation of humanitarian action and its implication for the Norwegian humanitarian field; a better analytical understanding of RBA as a buzzword in the international/Norwegian humanitarian space; and a conceptualization of the interlinkages between legal/ethical approaches to humanitarianism and the rise of ICT technology and digitization aas key modes of engagement. In terms of impact, the project has contributed to open the fields of technology/innovation and juridification for critical academic inquiry and public discussion. The agenda-setting achievements of the project will shape research and humanitarian policy discussions in the fields of lawfare/juridification and technologization.

Norways humanitarian engagement is part of a policy that aims to promote peace and sustainable development. Norway adopted a rights-based approach (RBA) to aid in the late 1990s. Adherence to this approach is a key element of both development policy and h umanitarian policy, and an important condition for funding-aid efforts. Concurrently, RBA as a project is considered to be in a state of crisis. We know little, however, about how the rights-based turn has shaped humanitarian action or contributed to huma nitarian outcomes over the last fifteen years. Aid in Crisis (AiC) will fill this knowledge gap through closer examination of institutions and countries which are significant recipients of Norwegian humanitarian aid over the past decade. Its overarching r esearch question is: How do human rights based approaches in crisis settings shape the effects of aid? We explore this research question through three work packages (WPs): WP1 examines how RBA is negotiated, disseminated and implemented in the internatio nal system through three case studies on the humanitarian UN, humanitarian international NGOs and Norwegian humanitarian NGOs. WP2 interrogates the conceptualizations, narratives and practices of RBA as they appear in the field. WP2 includes case stud ies on Colombia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Palestine and South Sudan, designed and developed in collaboration with partners. WP3 is based on the findings of WP 1 and 2, and considers how RBA contributes to humanitarian outcomes and identifies key lessons for do nors and practitioners. WP3 addresses future prospects of furthering Human Rights within humanitarian actions. The project is multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, and applies a qualitative approach. AiC has an international advisory board consistin g of legal scholars and humanitarian studies scholars, with broad experience in RBA practice and policy making.

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NORGLOBAL2-Norge - global partner