8 - Rethinking Humanitarian Disarmament

Summary

This chapter engages with humanitarian disarmament as a concept, rather than examining its practice in any particular context. It explains and distils general critiques of humanitarianism and explores whether, and if so, to what extent, those critiques might apply in the context of humanitarian disarmament. Drawing on literature from philosophy, media studies, critical security studies and human rights, four critiques of humanitarianism are examined: the apolitical posturing of humanitarianism; humanitarianism’s complicity with militarism; humanitarianism’s imperative of action; and the way in which a humanitarian discourse sets up a ‘hierarchy of humanity’. In each instance, the chapter shows that the general critiques do have traction in the specific context of humanitarian disarmament. Nevertheless, a humanitarian discourse is not rejected outright as being a viable means by which to advance disarmament discourse. Rather, the conclusion is that humanitarianism is one possible discourse that can, and does, illuminate disarmament but that it brings its own complexities, blind spots and complexities.