The Law of Protracted Conflict: Overcoming the Humanitarian-Development Divide
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
The protractedness of contemporary armed conflicts causes wide-ranging socio-economic harm, including grave damage to infrastructure, disruption of services, and aggressive exploitation of natural resources with negative consequences for the natural environment. The deterioration of the socio-economic conditions in conflicts over time, the link between longterm fragility and poverty, and the failure of international responses to significantly ameliorate the dire situation for affected populations render the traditional divide between humanitarian aid, development assistance, and peacebuilding unfeasible. The project aimed to investigate how international law hinders or enables integrated, sustainable, and accountable humanitarian aid, development assistance, and peacebuilding in contexts of protracted conflicts. The project delivered on its aim through three closely connected work packages (WPs) focusing on institutional frameworks, legal regime interactions, and accountability standards, respectively. It was the first project to approach the divide between humanitarian and development assistance and peacebuilding from an international legal perspective. In our research, we have found that international law contributes to upholding sectoral differences but that these are less rooted in black letter law rather than in established interpretations, institutional cultures, and practices that are open and have indeed been subject to revision. While such revision holds risks, like enabling institutions to expand contested economic agendas, there are also promising ideas to provide legal common ground across the sectors using concepts such as human rights-based approaches. Our findings in this regard are nuanced. Despite human rights rhetoric being employed in all three sectors, a common and fully conceptualized human rights-based approach rooted in international law has not emerged. Critics mostly use human rights law to hold specific actors accountable for the impacts of their policies on local communities. However, humanitarian and development actors do not accept human rights law as legal duties incumbent upon them, which in turn creates problems with accountability, an issue exacerbated by wide-ranging immunities. Nevertheless, promising approaches are being developed to enhance accountability by transferring accountability mechanisms and tools between the sectors. An example of this is the increasing use of mediation, an essential part of the peacebuilding toolbox, in development finance projects to address risks to local populations. Beyond its contributions to scholarship, the project developed legal and policy recommendations, particularly about developing more substantive human rights-based approaches and adopting mediation as an accountability mechanism.
Link zum Abschlussbericht
https://intrechtdok.de/receive/mir_mods_00021501
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
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Der internationalisierte nicht-internationale bewaffnete Konflikt, (2021) 2021/2 BRZ 101-116
Fritz G.
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Human Rights-Based Approaches to Protracted Conflicts (May 2023), Endless Conflicts Project Policy Brief
Jokubauskaite G., Buser A. & Terrey S.M.
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‘Does International Law Close Open Borders for Humanitarian Aid?’ (28 February 2023) Völkerrechtsblog
Münichsdorfer A.
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Humanitarian exemptions: illusive progress in safeguarding humanitarian assistance in the international counterterrorism architecture. Journal of Conflict and Security Law, 29(2), 249-272.
Terrey, Sofie-Marie & Münichsdorfer, Ansgar
