Political Conditionality and Humanitarian Aid

Framework, RebuttalsUtilizing People as a Means to an EndThe argument essentially equivocates political conditions with forcing another entity to a desired end without compensation or freedom. This equivoaction is a strawman. Political conditions do not remove freedom. Moreover, they are not a plea for production of any kind. They are conditions set forth to ensure that humanitarian aid is effective, and isn't required long-term. If the qualification for injustice is the removal of compensation or freedom for a desired end, then political conditions for humanitarian aid do not meet this qualification, and can thus be accepted as just.Contention One, RebuttalsPro indicated that the purpose of political conditionality is to force a form of governmental change. This does not make sense; to force something is to apply something against someone's will, free of any choice otherwise. Conditions for aid are never applied against a country or region's will. Humanitarian aid can always be rejected, and it has been rejected; accordingly, there is no force involved, neither through physical means nor through political insistance or pressure, for humanitarian aid, nor the conditions that accompany them. There are organizations that specifically deal with humanitarian aid negotiations, such as the Overseas Development Insitute (ODI) [1], and these negotiations include reprisals of conditions set on proposed humanitarian aid.Once again, conditions for humanitarian aid are for the purpose of improving humanitarian aid. They aren't for any political gain, but instead to amend governmental issues that are either causing or exacerbating a crisis. For example, the Sri Lankan government collected and imprisoned 270 thousand people in 2009, because the government suspected them of supporting Tamil rebels. The government allowed humanitarian organizations to provide assistance, but that assistance became the only means by which those prisoners of war could receive basic services. The organizations were left with two options: to compromise their neutrality by operating in tandem with UN peacekeeping and international donors, or to make their aid conditional, so that the survival of those people did not require long term aid and sponsorship by the organization, and instead, a reduction or cessation of conflict with Tamil rebels. [2]To "bolster" this argument, Pro renders the quote: "Two important features of political conditionality are its ex ante nature and punitive character: predetermined conditions are set in advance to access development financing and failure to meet these precludes further disbursements." This indicates two facts that weakens Pro's argument. First, that aid is provided initially despite whether conditions are met, and further aid requires that those conditions are met, those conditions most often being a means to render the aid functional or to mitigate internal problems that led to the need for aid in the first place.Contention Two, RebuttalsThe second case initiated by Pro states that political sanctions violate a state's sovereignty. However, when a country falls into such crisis as to require aid, that country has already relinquished its own sovereignty. It no longer has ultimate power, merely because that country cannot survive on its own. Requiring the need of another nation is not sovereignty; it is dependence. That dependence does not come with repudiation, merely conditions that can help the nation become soveriegn again. A country has never attained control over another country through humanitarian aid, conditional or otherwise. Unless Pro can give some examples of a country that enacted control over another through conditional humanitarian aid, this argument is moot. From a realist perspective, political agents are hardly moral actors, but are instead responsibile for their countries in general despite ideological claimes:"Realism maintains that universal oral principles cannot be applied to the action of states in their abstract universal formulation, but that they must be filtered through the concrete circumstances of time and place. The individual may say for himself: Fiat justitia, pereat mundus (Let justice be done,even if the world perish)," but the state has no right to say so in the nae of those who are in its car. Both individual and state must judge political action by universal moral principles, such as that of liberty. Yet, while the individual has a moral right to sacrifice himself in defense of such a moral principle, the state has no right to let its moral disapprobatino of the infringement of liberty get in the way of successful political action, itself inspired by the moral principle of national surivival. There can be no political morality without prudence; that is, without consideration of the political consequences of seemingly moral action. Realism, then, considersw prudence -- the weighing of the consequences of alternative political actions -- to be the supreme virtue in politics. Ethics in the abstract judges action by its conformity with the moral law; political ethics judges action by its political consequences." [3]In this regard, a consequential approach must be made to support the decisions of a governing body, rather than an ideological approach, as ideologies may not be practical when it comes to the lives of the people. Pro supports the argument for reduced sovereignty further by noting the quote:"Of greatest concern...ties the hands of domestic political actors."It is true that conditions result from unelected foreign experts, but this is in the interest of neutrality, which is one of the main tenets of humanitarian aid:"Humanitarian assistance is aid and action designed to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain and protect human dignity during and in the aftermath of emergencies. The characteristics that mark it out from other forms of foreign assitance and development aid are that it is intended to be governed by the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence." [4]Moreover, the fact is that in the absence of a stable governance upon which conditions can be applied, recent humanitarian aid in Syria has been all but completely unsuccessful, resulting in accusations that no humanitarian aid is being provided:"While security concerns and a country with divided leadership and loyalties have forced us, and virtually all of the groups providing them relief in northern Syria, to maintain an extremely low profile, I am speaking out now because the flawed narrative of "absent aid" threatens to hurt the people of Syria and endanger the aid groups working to help them."Off-Case RebuttalsPro asserts that conditional lending from the IMF has been historically unsuccessful without a preexisting tendency for such reforms. However, the IMF, or International Monetary Fund, is a relief fund that loans money to countries who express a need to bolster funds in order to enact structural changes. Financial aid from the international community and humanitarian aid are not the same thing. [5]Pro also assedrts that a government may be able to exploit humanitarian assistance to around national feelings against external interference. However, this actually supports the soft approach of conditions, which leads to aid that countries can still profit from, but act autonomously, even against the intentions of the aid itself, and through this, increase their power and influence. That hardly appears to be a lack or removal of sovereignty -- quite the opposite.Sources1. http://www.odi.org.uk...2. http://www.irinnews.org...3. https://www.mtholyoke.edu...4. http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org...5. http://www.imf.org...