I argued that neutrality ratifies the law of the strongest, citing the angry cries of Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s that ‘we have no need of you, we need arms to defend ourselves…your food aid and medicines only allow us to die in good health.’ I pointed to the incompatibility of MSF’s efforts to stop atrocities through public denunciation while respecting neutrality’s requirements to ‘refrain from controversies of a political or ideological nature ’ and I argued that the true measure of neutrality was its acceptance by both sides of a conflict, which is very hard to assure. I argued that it was immoral to remain neutral when faced with genocide and war crimes – to do so was to put oppressors and their victims on equal footing. I understand why – I attacked it myself two decades ago in a discussion paper for a debate within Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) over whether to remove the principle of neutrality from MSF’s charter. Taking action, not sides: the benefits of humanitarian neutrality in warĮvery decade or so, the humanitarian principle of neutrality comes under attack.
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