Bringing Law into the Political Sociology of Humanitarianism

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Over the past few years, the study of humanitarianism has emerged as an interdisciplinary subfield in international political sociology. This article maps out some preliminary ideas about the role of legal sociology in this project. The study of international humanitarian law has overwhelmingly been the terrain of doctrinal legal scholars, while the apparent lack of other law has meant that, until recently, legal sociologists have paid little attention to the humanitarian sector. There has also been little scholarly concern regarding the consequences of not asking questions about the role of law in the humanitarian project. We argue that legal sociology helps us understand how rules, standards and norms shape and are shaped by practices and interactions within and across humanitarian spaces globally, and how law contributes to humanitarian governance.

Finding the Roads to Justice? Examining Trajectories of Transition for Internally Displaced Women in Colombia

“…(2007). To compare contemporary efforts to establish urban violence as a humanitarian crisis, see Sandvik and Hoelscher (2016) and more generally, Lohne and Sandvik (2017). 5 For how the making of this law intertwined with the 1998 IDP guidelines, see Sandvik and Lemaitre (2015).…”

A world in turmoil: governing risk, establishing order in humanitarian crises

“…A different kind of legalisation is taking place through the evolution and institutionalisation of a legal standard for a ‘duty of care’ for humanitarian staff. The 2012 Samaritan Purse settlement and the 2015 Steve Dennis versus the Norwegian Refugee Council case from the Oslo District court, have shifted the conceptualisation of the duty of care standard for humanitarian staff from being a good practice standard in human resource management to becoming a standard considered from and articulated through the language of law and liability (Lohne and Sandvik, ; Sandvik, in print). Recently, this has also entailed the beginning of the breaking of a taboo of humanitarian action, namely sexual harassment and violence against humanitarian workers by their colleagues or aid recipients, leading to an open debate about the need and measures to protect staff against sexual violence (Nobert, ).…”

“…Finally, humanitarian governance is increasingly undertaken through law and law‐like language as actors are held accountable through legal or quasi‐legal mechanisms (Lohne and Sandvik, ). One important trend in international disaster response law (IDRL) is the evolving effort to eliminate bureaucratic barriers to the entry of relief personnel, goods and equipment, and the operation of relief programmes, as well as address regulatory failures to monitor and correct problems of quality and coordination in disasters (IFRC, ).…”

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“…As observed by Lohne and Sandvik (2017) and Scott-Smith (2016), it is the task of critical scholarship to look for assumptions regarding what is new, with respect to the claims of newness in itself, and in terms of the values, logics and priorities espoused by this agenda for change. Within this schema, the sectors own exchanges on newness (as illustrated by the exchange on technology, above) and what it says about change must be subjected to scrutiny.…”