Life, Death and Aid (Paperback)

This study documents the world's ten most significant human crises, unfolding against the backdrop of a so-called "New World Order". The authors (journalists, academics and members of Medicins Sans Frontieres) show how Western governments and, as a consequence, the United Nations, too often choose to apply a humanitarian balm on crises that call for long-term political solutions. The evidence of this is clearly seen in Somalia and the former Yugoslavia. The assumption that morality has become the driving force behind foreign policy must be treated with caution. It is not only dangerous for the impartiality of humanitarian aid, it is also ludicrous to assume that a state would lose sight of its "raison d'Etat". The work also spells out alternative ways of organizing the all-too-often conflicting and counterproductive mandates of the many UN agencies involved in emergency relief. And it also considers current concern for the revival of international law, while the most comprehensive body of humanitarian regulations, the Geneva Conventions, remains supremely ignored by its signatories.