Carsten Wieland

Syria and the Neutrality Trap (eBook, ePUB)

The Dilemmas of Delivering Humanitarian Aid through Violent Regimes

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

The Syrian war has been an example of the abuse and insufficient delivery of humanitarian assistance. According to international practice, humanitarian aid should be channelled through a state government that bears a particular responsibility for its population. Yet in Syria, the bulk of relief went through Damascus while the regime caused the vast majority of civilian deaths. Should the UN have severed its cooperation with the government and neglected its humanitarian duty to help all people in need? Decision-makers face these tough policy dilemmas, and often the "neutrality trap" snaps shut.

This book discusses the political and moral considerations of how to respond to a brutal and complex crisis while adhering to international law and practice. The author, a scholar and senior diplomat involved in the UN peace talks in Geneva, draws from first-hand diplomatic, practitioner and UN sources. He sheds light on the UN's credibility crisis and the wider implications for the development of international humanitarian and human rights law. This includes covering the key questions asked by Western diplomats, NGOs and international organizations, such as: Why did the UN not confront the Syrian government more boldly? Was it not only legally correct but also morally justifiable to deliver humanitarian aid to regime areas where rockets were launched and warplanes started? Why was it so difficult to render cross-border aid possible where it was badly needed? The meticulous account of current international practice is both insightful and disturbing. It tackles the painful lessons learnt and provides recommendations for future challenges where politics fails and humanitarians fill the moral void.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury UK eBooks
• Seitenzahl: 200
• Erscheinungstermin: 20. Mai 2021
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780755641413
• Artikelnr.: 61363579

Autorenporträt

Carsten Wieland is a German diplomat, senior UN consultant, Middle East and conflict expert with high-ranking mediation experience. He has served with three UN Special Envoys for Syria as Senior Expert for Intra-Syrian Talks and political advisor. He has also worked on political responses to the Syrian conflict for the German Foreign Office. In his diplomatic capacity he was also Director of the German Information Center for the Arab World in Cairo. Currently, he works as Senior Middle East Advisor for the Green Party Parliamentary Group in the German Bundestag.
Wieland is also a lecturer at New York University (NYU) Berlin, Associate Fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), guest professor at the University Rosario in Bogotá, and previously a fellow at the Public Policy Institute at Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA. He worked also as director of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) in Colombia.
A journalist by training, he reported from the United States, the Middle East and Latin America as a foreign correspondent for the German Press Agency (DPA). His academic publications include Syria: A Decade of Lost Chances (2012), Syria - Ballots or Bullets (2006) and Syria at Bay: Secularism, Islamism, and "Pax Americana" (2006).
Wieland studied history, political science and philosophy at Humboldt University in Berlin, Duke University in North Carolina and at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

Inhaltsangabe

Foreword Abbreviations 1. Introduction to a Tough Dilemma 2. Expectations
and Disillusions Beyond Syria 3. Containing the Human Beast: Fundamentals
of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law The Government's
Particular Responsibility State-centred International Practice Neutrality
and Impartiality Countries' Controversial Consent 4. A Moving Target:
Dynamics of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law Law or War An
Octopus with Dwindling Force Contested Notions of State Sovereignty 5. The
Terrorism Tool: De-humanizing the Other The Sin of Rage at Ground Zero The
Myth of the Unlawful Combatant Poisonous Rhetoric A Self-fulfilling
Prophecy 6. De-Neutralizing Aid: All Roads Lead to Damascus The
Government's Grip on Humanitarian Work Syrian Arab Red Crescent's Plight in
a Totalitarian System Western Diplomats' Dilemma Cross-Border Controversies
in the Security Council 7. In the Pillory: The UN's Syria Dilemma
Complicity with Evil Contracting Dangerous Bedfellows Between All Fronts
8. Credibility Crisis The UN Reacts Donors React 9. Diversifying Aid: Roads
to Circumvent Damascus "Humanitarian Plus" A Double-edged Sword The
Reconstruction Gamble 10. Irreconcilable Positions: Roads to Nowhere Fig
Leaf for Political Failure Double Deficiency Russia's Soft Power Failure
Contempt for Multilateralism 11. Arguments for Change: How to Avoid the
Neutrality Trap Conclusion Bibliography Index