Between Samaritans and states

Between Samaritans and states: the political ethics of humanitarian INGOs. By Jennifer Rubenstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2015. 472pp. £49.50. ISBN 978 0 19968 410 6. Available as e-book. In the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, refugee camps in Burundi, Tanzania and (what was then) Zaire became host to almost 2 million Hutus. The camps in Zaire quickly became highly militarized, with the ex-Rwandan Defence Forces (FAR) regrouping, rearming and diverting enormous quantities of humanitarian aid. The international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) working in the camps therefore faced a dilemma over whether to withdraw and consequently deprive legitimate refugees of vital services or to remain knowing that their presence would continue to enable the ‘ex’-FAR. This, and other types of ethical conflict facing humanitarian INGOs, is the focus of a new book by Jennifer Rubenstein, Between Samaritans and states. Claiming to be the first book-length English-language account of humanitarian INGO political ethics, it seeks not only to explore the ethical challenges that humanitarian agencies face, but also to ask whether, using the right ethical framework, INGOs might be better able to navigate these predicaments in the future

Dilemma · Ethnology · Genocide · Humanitarian aid · Humanitarian crisis · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Sociology · Tanzania · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law