Publisher’s note
Humanitarian action, as one of the main international public policies deployed permanently on all continents, is currently providing aid to some 200 million beneficiaries.
The first UN-led World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 highlighted the challenges it now faces, as evidenced by the dimension taken with the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, the spread of NGOs’ humanitarian aid, the affirmation of State humanitarianism and the involvement of international organisations.
Humanitarian action is characterised by plurality, diversity and the dispersion of the norms on which it is based, or which it itself produces, notably as a specific professional and social order, with its own ethics, its own language, and as a genuine globalised economy.
Thus, scientific interest justifies apprehending humanitarian action as an autonomous object of analysis, based on a global vision that factors in all circumstances in which it unfolds.
The aim of this book —unique amongst French scientific and academic literature —is to present the widest and most complete panorama by combining – also uniquely —the resources of the law with those of other disciplines, and by bringing together academics, researchers and renowned practitioners. The book hopes to offer food for thought on what the “humanitarian ecosystem” is, the questions raised by its choices and aims —between emergency relief and sustainable development.
Students and researchers will appreciate this book, with its scope and insight into practices that had been lacking in their specialty. Practitioners will recognise this in-depth analysis as a useful tool for contemporary humanitarian action.
Edited by Sandra Szurek, Professor Emeritus of the University of Paris Nanterre, Associate Professor at the Institute of Higher International Studies (IHEI) of the University of Paris II Pantheon-Assas, Marina Eudes, Master HDR lecturer at the University of Paris Nanterre, member of CEDIN, Director of the International Criminal Organisations and Courts Diploma, Philippe Ryfman, Professor and Honorary Associate Researcher in the Department of Political Science at the Sorbonne, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, lawyer and consultant.
