ABSTRACT
The international humanitarian order concerns the protection of those in immediate peril and the prevention of unnecessary suffering. It includes norms, informal institutions, laws, and discourses that legitimate and compel various kinds of interventions with the explicit goal of preserving and protecting life. There are now a surfeit of conventions and treaties that are designed to protect the fundamental right of all peoples-the right to life. International human rights, humanitarian, and refugee law were distant cousins for most of the last century, but over the last two decades they have become intertwined, reinforcing each other and creating an increasingly dense normative structure. In 2005 the UN World Summit acknowledged a “responsibility to protect” populations who are the victims of campaigns of extermination. Although much less famous than the doctrine of a responsibility to protect, a “right to relief” has been around much longer and has more teeth-there now exist fairly ingrained expectations that the international community should deliver life-saving assistance to those endangered by natural or humanly made disasters. A multitude of slogans and rallying cries-including “never again” and the “humanitarian imperative”—accompany graphic and heart-wrenching photos of victims of violence. These norms, laws, and institutions are nestled in discourses of compassion, responsibility, and care, which, in turn, are attached to claims regarding the kinds of obligations the “international community” has to its weakest members.
