Shawcross also demonstrates that the power-driven nature of the U.N. leads to striking inequities in the treatment of different tragedies. Little outrage was expressed about repression in East Timor while abuses in Kosovo were loudly deplored and led to the NATO bombing of Serbia. Following World War II, humanitarian relief was seen as a nonpolitical activity. With the rising importance of warlords, that concept of humanitarianism has come to a brutal end. Aid delivery has to be negotiated with different warring factions and is bedeviled by corruption and theft.
Humanitarian workers are now in the front lines and often more at risk than military forces.
In 1998, more U.N. civilian workers were killed in the line of duty than peacekeeping soldiers. The experience of the 1990s demands that much of the international humanitarian approach be reconsidered. There still seems to be a consensus that the world must react when large numbers of people are suffering, but the problems and the costs are now likely to be much greater. The cloak of impunity provided by national sovereignty may still be in place but there are beginnings of new ways to deal with the question of evil. These may be tentative beginnings, but the seeds of a new resistance to evil have been planted.