Humanitarian Issues

Fighting Over Darfur By Alex Thurston Rebecca Hamilton’s Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide raises important and troubling questions about the relationship between America’s domestic politics and African conflicts.  Hamilton thoughtfully probes the limits of

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The media profile of Darfur shot up enormously once the label ‘the world’s worst humanitarian crisis’ was applied, although technically the phrase used was the “world’s greatest humanitarian and human rights catastrophe.” This is commonly standardised to ‘world’s worst…’ In

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When the 13 aid agencies were expelled from Darfur, about seven months ago, voices were raised about the possible humanitarian implications of this on the people of Darfur. The Guardian on 5 March 2009 mentioned that “About 4.7 million people

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Pacification “NO PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE” The second main argument used in support of the International Criminal Court is that there can be “no peace without justice.” This argument is summed up perfectly in this 6 March 2009 editorial in Le

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Introduction Officially, the thirteen NGOs expelled from Sudan after an international arrest warrant was issued against Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir were being punished for their “violations to the laws of the humanitarian work” in cooperating with the “so-called International Criminal

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Last week in the House of Commons, London, I introduced a debate which I believe has the potential of affecting many lives. It is a debate which I believe we should insist people engage with in the hope that the

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Another excellent and invaluable report from the Feinstein Center at Tufts University. The somewhat dry title, Targeting in Complex Emergencies: Darfur Case Study does not do justice to the richness of the material and analysis—and its implications for resolution of

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A couple of days ago I received a mass email from the Save Darfur Coalition, encouraging me to “turn words into action.” It asked me to write to President Obama urging him to roll out his blueprint for peace in

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A new briefing paper by Helen Young, Karen Jacobsen and Abdalmonim Osman Livelihoods, Migration and Conflict is the most recent briefing paper in the Tufts University series on livelihoods in Darfur. It is as good as its predecessors and is

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US Senator John Kerry reports that due to Khartoum’s decision to “engage in a new dialogue with us, some of that capacity for humanitarian assistance will be restored.” The mass-expulsion of aid agencies from Darfur six weeks ago showed in

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