Placing political conditions on humanitarian aid to foreign countries is unjust.

This debate will be done in Lincoln Douglass format. Round 1Affirmative Constructive (affirmative case)Negative Constructive (negative presents case, attacks affirmative's case)Round 2Affirmative Rebuttal 1 (affirmative attacks opponents case, rebuilds their own)Negative Rebuttal (negative attacks opponents case, rebuilds their own, presents voting issues)Round 3Affirmative Rebuttal 2 (affirmative attacks opponent's voting issues, presents their own)NOTE: For the negative's last speech my opponent can either type in "the end" to follow the traditional LD speech order, of if they would prefer, they can save presenting their voters for the end.AffirmativeI agree with Lynn Pascoe, the U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, when she stated “These are human beings that need the food. It's not the political system. This shouldn't be argued in a political way." Therefore, I stand in firm affirmation of the resolution which states resolved: Placing political conditions on humanitarian aid to foreign countries is unjust.For the clarification of today’s round, I offer the following definitions:Political Conditions- The criteria which are applied to a specific situation regarding the behavior of the government (Summarized from the SDC). Humanitarian Aid- aid and action designed to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain and protect human dignity during and in the aftermath of emergencies(globalhumanitarianassistance.org)Unjust- not behaving according to what is morally right and fair (Oxford Dictionary)The highest value for today’s round is justice. Justice, defined by Oxford Dictionaries is “the quality of being fair and reasonable.” This value is important because, as the resolution implies, we are debating whether political conditions on humanitarian aid is just or unjust.The criterion which best supports my value is preserving human dignity. Preserving human dignity is vital because humans are worthy of fundamental respect and have inherent worth. This criterion best achieves my value because we can achieve fair and reasonable treatment of citizens in foreign countries through the preservation of human dignity. This is only achieved on the affirmative because human’s dignity is only preserved through the provision of humanitarian aid without treating humans like bargaining chips.I offer the following contentions to support my value and criterion:Contention 1: Political conditions placed on humanitarian aid are often ineffective, making them unjust.Point A: Many foreign countries do not accept political conditions.Political conditions can result in aid being completely denied to those who need it most. This is very obvious in the case of North Korea. Various political conditions have been placed on the aid which have lead absolutely no humanitarian assistance for the country. In 2010, when North Korea declared they would not abandon their nuclear weapons program, countries began to deny aid. (CNN, Tom Evans) (1) Again, in 2012, the United States became reluctant to provide North Korea with aid due certain political conditions being rejected. (Congressional Research Service) (2) The citizens of North Korea are essentially being punished for the decisions of their government. North Korea is not the only country to undergo problems with political conditionality. Countries with similar amounts of corruption (Corruption Perceptions Index) (3) such as Haiti and Afghanistan have suffered due to political conditions placed on humanitarian aid; these issues will be discussed later in the contention. Point B: Many foreign countries do not follow political conditions.The ineffectiveness of political conditions can have very disastrous effects for foreign countries. African Online Journals (4) states, “Despite conditions not having been met in the past, Western aid to Africa has been kept running, which renders conditionality ineffective.” In this case the countries were fortunate to not have their aid completely cut off. Gordon Crawford (5) emphasizes that 18 out of every 29 country cases (62 percent) are unable to actually meet political conditions donors place on aid. In many of these cases, aid is either reduced, or suspended. In Haiti’s devastating earthquake of 2010, Haiti suffered from aid suspensions and reductions because conditions were not met. The National Academy of Public Administration (6) notes, “Aid suspensions or deep reductions to force accountability were highly problematic in Haiti.” Afghanistan also dealt with this issue. Aid was denied to Afghanistan due to the choices of the Taliban. Curtis (7) said, “The net impact has been the restriction of the right to humanitarian assistance and the inability of the international assistance community to adequately address short-term life saving needs.” The impact of these two points is that corruption results in citizens in the recipient countries either getting no aid at all, or aid suspensions and reductions. Justice is not achieved in scenarios such as these because it is unfair and unreasonable to deny citizens aid due to their corrupt government’s decisions. In order to preserve human dignity, aid must be provided without political conditions attached.Contention 2: Political conditions cause more harm than good for the donor country.When looking to whether political conditions on humanitarian aid are just or unjust, the wellbeing of the donor country must be taken into consideration. Smith of Beyond Intractability (8) states, “Conditionality is often resented as an invasion of sovereignty, and can backfire on the sender.” Even if the political conditions are set with good intentions, they can seriously cause problems for the donor. In the case of North Korea mentioned earlier, tensions between North Korea and the United States became significantly worse once the aid was refused because North Korea believed that the political conditions were infringing on their autonomy. Oxfam (9) notes that “work that has primarily political or military objectives should not be designated as ‘humanitarian’, because of the risk that one side of a conflict will see it, and potentially all other relief, as part of a military strategy, and take action against it.” When humanitarian aid is combined with political objectives, conflict arises which negatively impacts not just the recipient, but also the donor. Mold (10) states “Donors insisting on policy conditions may soon find themselves sidelined - many developing countries are finding alternative official and private sources of finance that come with fewer strings attached.” Here it is obvious that political conditions will result in loss of credibility for the donor. The impact of this is that removing political conditions from humanitarian aid is important because it will positively impact the donor. Justice is achieved because the citizens of the donor country are being treated fairly and reasonably because they will not suffer the repercussions of their country’s government invading another country’s sovereignty. The country’s dignity is preserved because the donor will not suffer from a loss of credibility. Contention 3: The quality of aid is improved when political conditions are removed. OECD Secretary Gerald Donald Johnston (11) states, “Untying aid, by restoring the choice to impoverished recipient countries would increase the value of the aid, remove a distortion to world commerce and enhance the dignity of the aid process that has been sullied by the mercantilist attitudes of some in the developed world.” Even if the recipient country successfully follows the political conditions, it must be taken into account that the quality of the aid is being put in jeopardy through the political conditions. Several political conditions force the recipient country to only buy products from the donor country. The recipient country is now required to purchase pricey imports from the donor country instead of using cheaper options to obtain products; as IPS (12) states, the value of the aid can be cut by 25 to 40 percent. In addition to this issue, Alastair (13) states, “The amount of aid given and to whom it is given are both consistent with the decisions expected from political leaders who are motivated to enhance their political survival.” Essentially, with political conditions, the aid is based on political survival and not what would actually be successful. The impact of this is that political conditions must be removed from humanitarian aid in order for the aid to live up to its full potential. The citizens receiving the aid will be positively impacted by receiving the highest quality of aid possible, achieving justice and preserving human dignity.