Today's warfare often takes place in cities and villages, with civilians as the preferred targets, the propagation of terror as the premeditated tactic, and the physical elimination or mass displacement of certain categories of populations as the overarching strategy. The acts of warring parties in recent conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan bear testimony to this. Breaches of human rights and humanitarian law, including mutilation, rape, forced displacement, denial of the right to food and medicines, diversion of aid and attacks on medical personnel and hospitals are no longer inevitable by-products of war. They have become the means to achieve a strategic goal. As a result even low intensity conflicts generate enormous human suffering.
Humanitarian needs are disproportionate to the scale of military conflict.
Meeting these needs has become more difficult, as the dividing line between soldiers and civilians has grown blurred. Too often humanitarian agencies are left alone in these desperate situations and their efforts are taken for granted. Humanitarian action on its own may alleviate, at times appease through non-political dialogue, but can never resolve conflicts that in essence have political origins. The only effective way to deal with many of these crises is for the UN Security Council to exercise its central and unique responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security, as foreseen in the Charter. The second aspect of the environment in which we work is the legal framework for our activities.