ABSTRACT
The term ‘humanitarian action’ (or ‘aid’) is generally used to characterize all types of assistance to people in need: old people or orphans, poor people or victims of natural disasters and armed conflicts. A very precise and restrictive definition of concern in this chapter exists as well: life-saving activities in armed conflicts and war. This restricted definition refers to its specification in international humanitarian law (IHL), also called the law of war: jus in bello. IHL does not include humanitarian action in natural disasters, which is regulated by national legislation even though for humanitarian actors the same principles apply as in the case of armed conflicts. IHL specifies the rights and obligations of the parties to armed conflicts. The basic documents are the four Geneva Conventions (1949) and the two Additional Protocols (1977). Whereas states are well defined, this is not the case for armed groups, and even less so for non-governmental humanitarian actors. Anybody may define themselves as humanitarian workers, any organization may call itself a humanitarian organization and every humanitarian organization may interpret differently the principles guiding their interventions in armed conflicts. This absence of well-defined and applied universal standards is a crucial issue given the amounts spent on life-saving activities. In 2008 the estimated sums provided for global humanitarian assistance, including both official and private contributions, amounted to 18 billion US dollars.
