The Law of Protracted Conflict: Overcoming the Humanitarian-Development Divide

Contemporary armed conflicts have become protracted, complex and urbanised with far-reaching socio-economic consequences, such as severe damage to infrastructure, disruption of services, and protracted displacement. The dire socio-economic dimensions of protracted conflicts, as well as the link between poverty and fragility, render the traditional divide between humanitarian and development assistance unfeasible to address the short- and long-term needs of affected communities. The proposed project will provide a comprehensive analysis of the institutional and substantive legal frameworks within which humanitarian and development assistance are delivered. Its aim is to investigate the extent to which international law enables integrated, sustainable and accountable humanitarian and development assistance in contexts of protracted conflicts. The project will deliver on its aim through three closely connected work packages (WP) that focus on institutions, legal regimes and accountability, respectively. WP 1 charts the multitude of humanitarian and development actors operating in contexts of protracted conflicts and examines whether their mandates, principles, legal relations, and institutional structures are amenable to the creation of a humanitarian-development nexus. WP 2 focuses on the interactions between legal regimes applicable to protracted conflicts, with a view to evaluating whether international law contributes to the creation of the divide between the two sectors or can in fact provide legal common grounds to overcome the divide between them. Lastly, WP 3 assesses the need for new standards and mechanisms to ensure the inclusion of and accountability to affected communities in light of the expanding and interconnected nature of humanitarian and development responses. The project will be the first to approach the divide between humanitarian and development assistance comprehensively from an international law perspective. Moreover, it will clarify the laws that pertain to the underexplored, socio-economic dimensions of protracted conflicts. Therefore, the project will make fundamental advances in the field of international law, as well as the multidisciplinary fields of humanitarianism, development, transitional justice, and peacebuilding. More broadly, the research findings of the project will contribute to some of the fundamental debates in international law, for example, on the evolution of international (humanitarian) law in face of the changing characteristics of armed conflicts, regime interactions and fragmentation of international law, and the expanding role and authority of non-state actors, particularly international organisations, in global governance. Beyond its contributions to scholarship, the project will develop legal and policy recommendations for the interpretation and design of international law and thus engage in knowledge transfer for international cooperation towards the operationalisation of the humanitarian-development nexus.

The last decade has seen a surge in the intensity and duration of armed conflicts, leading to widespread human suffering and major economic costs (United Nations and World Bank, 2018). The traditional conceptualisation of humanitarian assistance as confined to the provision of short-term relief and of development assistance as part of long-term socio-economic programming for the post-conflict phase has created a divide that fails to address the needs of affected communities. Accordingly, the need for an integrated humanitarian-development response to protracted armed conflicts has resurfaced on the international agenda (UNGA, 2016; CoEU, 2017). However, little is known about the legal drivers of humanitarian-development divide and the legal risks that arise as this agenda is moving forward.

The overall goal of the project is to steer prevalent legal interpretations and policy implementation towards a more integrated, effective and accountable practice of humanitarian and development assistance. More specifically, this project aims to instigate institutional learning towards better understanding of legal relations and mandates relevant in protracted conflict, from an international law perspective. The objective is to get the actors from all levels to communicate more effectively, to co-produce the knowledge that pertain to this research project, and then feed back the findings of the project to the communities of practice working in both humanitarian and development domains of policy-making.

Some institutions involved in development and humanitarian assistance are key in forging convergence between the two areas and in shaping future policy directions. Others are central for our project from a perspective of knowledge exchange, as they can help the project team to acquire a more fine-grained understanding of current practices and policy implementation on the ground. Accordingly, the project sets out to engage with three levels of policy makers and practitioners, working in the areas of development, humanitarian affairs and peacebuilding:

(i) Global policy-making community of international institutions and major donors (notably, Germany and the UK) that seek to create convergences between humanitarian and development sectors. They would benefit from more fine-grained understanding of legal challenges involved in the policy shift towards greater development-humanitarian nexus, both on the ground and at a systemic level of international legal practice.

(ii) Policy makers, non-state groups and civil society based in the DRC and Colombia that are involved in managing and contesting humanitarian and development interventions at the national and/or local level. They generally deal with the real-life consequences of development-humanitarian divide and would benefit from better understanding of how to navigate legal complexity underpinning the two fields.

(iii) Practitioners working on protracted conflicts at the grassroot level, providing services that help to plan and implement humanitarian and development action, e.g. mediators, leaders of field missions, and project-level consultants. They work directly with affected communities and would benefit from concrete and practical guidelines how the nexus between the two areas can be operationalised.

Because the project aims to advance the fundamental knowledge about international legal drivers of humanitarian-development divide, it can inform the practice of all three of these target audiences. Through an increased awareness of target groups about legal interpretations that would encourage greater convergence, this project will enhance the positive impacts of both development and humanitarian action on the ground. Similarly, through better articulation of legal risks involved in the greater policy coherence, this project will strengthen the legal position of affected local communities in contesting harmful or ineffective conflict interventions