This essay explores the particular approach of humanitarian diplomacy developed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in its global mission to increase the protection and assistance of people affected by armed conflicts. Essential to this approach is the humanitarian challenge of balancing impartial and neutral humanitarian operations on the ground with equally neutral, impartial, and effective humanitarian advocacy in the corridors of power and on the global street.
The ICRC takes a specific approach to this challenge, and always has, because of its unique relationship with states and with international humanitarian law (IHL). This leads us to talk of humanitarian “diplomacy” more than humanitarian “advocacy.” We deliberately distinguish our humanitarian approach from human rights advocacy, even though it shares much of the human rights method with its reference to law, fact-finding, documentation, and awareness-raising to influence policy and behavioral change.Footnote 1
The ICRC pursues its humanitarian diplomacy in confidential dialogues with the victims of war and also with the powerful who determine policy, strategy, and practice in and around armed conflicts. These confidential humanitarian dialogues run quietly alongside a public communications strategy that raises general global awareness of suffering in conflict as well as of the rules of war that prescribe the conduct and limit the impact of hostilities. We assess conditions and speak out from within our peculiar in bello–only perspective. Unlike most human rights organizations, our humanitarian approach does not consider ad bellum arguments about the moral and legal justifications of armed conflict. We do not scrutinize the moral value of the political projects of the parties to conflict and take no position on the optimal political outcomes of a war. We simply look at the lawfulness of the parties’ conduct as belligerents and their obligations to respond to the humanitarian consequences of a war.
This approach is unique to the ICRC, and is recognized by states in international law in the Geneva Conventions. I hope to show that it is a morally valuable approach in a world in which many other advocacy groups take distinct political positions on conflicts and use a wider set of norms, values, and interests than is offered by a humanitarian perspective alone. Specifically, this essay discusses three aspects of humanitarian diplomacy. First, it draws on the ancient history of human rights advocacy and humanitarian diplomacy to define its fundamental challenge as the varied art of persuasion. I look back to ancient history and highlight three archetypal forms of sacred power—that of prophet, priest, and monarch—and the various ways that persuasion works among them. To illustrate this, I use examples of humanitarian and human rights advocacy from the Jewish scriptures, ancient Chinese court philosophy, the Christian Gospels, and Islam.
The second part of the essay then illustrates the ICRC's particular approach to humanitarian diplomacy and draws on Yemen as an example of that approach, showing its resonance with the ancient courtly tradition of humanitarian diplomacy, rather than the louder style of the radical prophet. Finally, in the third part I address the ethics of silence, which is so often assumed to be a moral failure in confidential humanitarian diplomacy when, in fact, it can be a virtue and an asset for an exclusively humanitarian organization such as the ICRC. I will, of course, also explain the limits of humanitarian silence and show when it should be broken.
Archetypal Forms of Political Persuasion
Ancient religious archetypes foreground three particular sacred functions, each of which has the welfare of the people as its earthly purpose. The prophet sees clearly and wisely what is wrong in society and issues a call for change that challenges the heart. The priest administers the rites that keep the monarch and people pure. The monarch administers the government that ensures people are contented and fed, preserves justice among them, and, in a perfect world, is attentive to both prophet and priest.
Many of the world's religious and philosophical narratives involve the relationship of these three roles as they interact politically to define the national interest and ensure the health of the nation and its various communities. Most ancient traditions agree that it is in the national interest for there to be harmony between people and monarch, and that priests and prophets play an important role in encouraging this harmony and keeping it on track. The ancient dynamic among prophet, priest, king, and people is at play today in human rights advocacy and humanitarian diplomacy in war—the purpose of which is to influence social, political, religious, commercial, and military power and keep it on the right path so that it respects, protects, and assists people affected by armed conflict.
Ancient history provides two different types of advocacy among prophets, priests, and kings. In the Jewish tradition we have, most famously, the loud “naming and shaming” advocacy practiced by Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, Elijah, and Jeremiah, all of whom “called out” bad kingship and social injustice and attacked the abuse of power by political elites and a callous citizenry. The intention with this approach is always to call the king and the people to a fundamental change of heart, from which they see each other differently and correct their political actions and bad habits in favor of justice and the poor. In Islam, we see the Prophet Muhammad consistently making this kind of public call, in words and in actions, in his encounters with the authorities at Mecca as he shared the revelation of the Quran and challenged both people and power with its truth.
This kind of loud prophetic call takes great courage and is often made by a prophet who puts himself outside the court and risks death in doing so. It is the kind of deeply disruptive public call that we also find in the Christian tradition in the figure of John the Baptist, who calls all people to repent and specifically criticizes the king and his family. It is also on display when Jesus attacks the Pharisees as hypocrites and overturns the money tables in the Temple. This type of loud prophetic advocacy is “out there,” “in your face,” and “on the street.” Its purpose is to create a storm and effect a 180-degree change in the policies of the political and religious establishment, and in the behavior of the people being misled by them.
The public call is not the only type of intervention. There is also an ancient and effective tradition of humanitarian advocacy that is a more intimate prophetic call or priestly counsel to the king. In the Jewish Tanakh, Queen Esther is a good example of this kind of advocacy, even if the subsequent action of the king against those persecuting the Jewish people was not an entirely humanitarian response.Footnote 2 Esther intervenes privately with her husband, King Artaxerxes, to tell him of the genocide being planned in his name and directly asks him to prevent it, which he does. Esther's approach exemplifies a courageous, intimate, and face-to-face call, which involves personal risk in a direct “behind the scenes” encounter with those in power.
Perhaps the most consistent example of an intimate call between sage and king comes from the Confucian tradition in ancient China, particularly the famously direct approach of Meng K‘e, or Mencius, to use the Latin name given to him by the Western tradition. Mencius traveled from court to court advising kings during the terrible period of “warring states” before the eventual formation of the empire under the Qin dynasty. Much of his discussion with kings was about good government at home and wise foreign policy with neighboring states. Mencius had a firm conviction in “benevolent government” and held that a person becomes a true king by tending his people so that they avoid hunger, famine, and injustice and have wealth enough to care for their elderly.Footnote 3 A true king also avoids imposing the horrors of war on his people, only ever using war as a last resort. The national interest and the interest of the king should be the peace and prosperity of the people, who will only become a nation and respect his rule if he respects them, understands their needs, and enables them to flourish with him. The book of Mencius is, in part, a report of his many personal conversations with kings. In those conversations, he calls them to benevolent governance by thinking through foreign policy dilemmas with them and focusing on a philosophy of the heart. For Mencius, the heart is the seat of goodness from which humans make their choices. It has four innate tendencies—compassion, shame, modesty, and courtesy—and it has a sense of right and wrong.Footnote 4
These brief examples of ancient political persuasion serve to show the difference between the public and the private “calls” to responsibility that prophets and priests of various kinds can make upon kings. Today there is, perhaps, a bias in Western society toward the loud public call. The modern rights-based social and political activism that developed in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries has preferred the loud approach. Pioneering campaigns by Voltaire and others against torture combined naming and shaming with stinging public arguments and powerful coalitions of support.Footnote 5 The antislavery campaign in the United Kingdom took a similar approach and scaled it up dramatically to become the template for all subsequent campaigns. In today's digitalized world of social media, most contemporary campaigns are still using early nineteenth-century methods, which were themselves very similar to the methods used so successfully by Martin Luther, who leveraged the technology of the printing press to precipitate the Protestant Reformation.Footnote 6
The loud approach is a very public interpretation of the Quaker command to “speak truth to power,” and its proponents have taken cues from the mass movement methods of Mahatma Gandhi and the U.S. civil rights movement. Of course, Gandhi was seldom more powerful than when he was silent and on a hunger strike, and Quakers have as great a tradition of discreet individual listening and personal private advocacy as they have a history of public campaigning. Thomas Clarkson practiced both to great effect in the antislavery movement.
The current preference for the loud campaign has tended to skew the political and humanitarian imagination toward a normalization of public naming and shaming. In the modern activist sensibility, there is a feeling that if one is not loud and “passionate,” then one is not committed and will not be convincing. This is a limited view of prophecy and influence that focuses on developing “outrage” as an angry form of public piety at the expense of the careful craft of persuasion.
The ICRC Approach
The ICRC's humanitarian diplomacy is perhaps closest to the intimate tradition, that of Esther and Mencius, but with a layer of loud public awareness–raising above its very private conversations. Ours is an impartial, neutral, and independent organization with an exclusively humanitarian mission. This means we never favor one group or party over another and only ever respond in proportion to need. Nor do we ever become involved in a conflict in an ideological way, retaining our operational independence as much as possible on the ground.Footnote 7 Our preferred mode of action is persuasion through confidential dialogues.Footnote 8 This approach consists of persuading a relevant authority to meet its obligations without resorting to public pressure. The rationale for this approach is found in the ICRC's primary commitment to the victims of armed conflict and violence. In order to discharge its mission, the organization considers that it must have direct and sustained access to both the people who are victims of a given situation and to the authorities who exercise control over or have access to them.
The ICRC's experience over many decades suggests that we can maintain the most effective balance of relationships with victims and authorities by working confidentially with both groups, and between both groups. Our confidentiality needs to be trusted by all parties, and so all staff members sign a “pledge of discretion” that imposes an obligation of professional secrecy. Our confidentiality is also recognized externally by international law. The International Criminal Court and other international criminal tribunals recognize the ICRC's right not to divulge information relating to its activities.Footnote 9 At the national level, we typically have headquarters agreements with specific clauses guaranteeing such immunity for ICRC staff in national courts on matters relating to their work.
The ICRC's commitment to neutrality and impartiality reassures all parties that it is safe to engage with us and heightens their trust in our determination to treat what they tell us in confidence. These commitments are complemented by an equal commitment to transparency with all parties. The ICRC will always be open (in confidence) with each party about the fact that it is talking to other parties. We will not tell them what we have discussed—unless one party specifically asks us to carry a particular message to another—but we will tell them that we have been in discussions with their enemies and with victims of the conflict. At the same time, we also engage in vigorous public diplomacy and policy dialogue in conferences of states and in many relevant professional communities focused on international law, security, health, and many other issues relevant to humanitarian action.
Inevitably, the ICRC's humanitarian diplomacy is not always effective. Nor is it necessarily better than other more public approaches to humanitarian persuasion. But it is certainly complementary to such approaches. It is a unique method that is well recognized by states and brings definite added value through its access to hard to reach areas on the ground and strategic levels of government.
So what does this approach look like in practice? The ICRC operates out of a headquarters in Geneva, with delegations in eighty countries around the world and many more sub-delegations on the front lines of conflicts. Using this network and our staff of seventeen thousand, we engage in confidential dialogues with the victims of armed conflicts and the relevant authorities in governments and nonstate armed groups at all times and in all places. Our “protection dialogues” and humanitarian diplomacy happen at several levels of power and through many different channels.
Our president—as our chief diplomat—works at the highest political level with heads of state, government ministers, and the leaders of armed groups. Somewhat like Mencius, he meets them in private and discusses the conduct of hostilities, the treatment of victims, and their operational dilemmas—always urging them toward greater respect for IHL and improved conditions for all people affected by their actions or at risk in the conflict. The president also spends significant time witnessing the effects of armed conflicts and listening to victims and humanitarian staff.
This style of humanitarian advocacy is repeated in our wider networking efforts that spread out at every level of a conflict. ICRC teams work with counterparts in the military, political, administrative, and technical divisions of all warring parties, and with humanitarian organizations, civil society organizations, and any major stakeholder who has influence over the conduct of hostilities and the humanitarian response. In every encounter, we make the humanitarian “call” by promoting respect for the Geneva Conventions and IHL and by bringing to people's attention the particular risks and needs of the civilian population and other protected persons, such as detainees, separated families, and missing people.
These private conversations about violations and the need for remedial actions can be direct and blunt. Nonetheless, our approach is always to come with suggestions and solutions, not to be confrontational for its own sake. For example, sometimes the mutual interests of warring parties can be found in reciprocal treatment of their civilians, their wounded, or their prisoners. These discussions can develop into humanitarian dialogues across the lines of conflict to improve the humanitarian situation. Understandably, perhaps, parties usually prefer these kinds of dialogue to be kept quiet and discreet when armed conflict is at its height.
Developing effective confidential humanitarian dialogues across the lines of conflict is a complicated business in many of today's wars because there are often so many parties to a given conflict and such deep divisions across the international community of states. There is seldom international consensus or even great-power consensus on conflicts today. This range of views is manifest in multiple alliances and the many different military coalitions and partnered operations fighting one another in a single war.
The ICRC's humanitarian diplomacy in Yemen—the site of the conflict that causes the ICRC the most immediate concern in the Middle East today—is a prime example of our approach. The humanitarian consequences of this conflict have been severe. Bombardment of urban areas has been routine, and blockades and import restrictions have crippled a country that relies on imports for 80 percent of its essential supplies. Chronic hunger has affected 60 percent of the population, verging on famine; health systems have collapsed to 40 percent capacity (sometimes because of direct attacks on health facilities); and a cholera epidemic has affected over one million people. The good news is that humanitarian aid and the extraordinary dedication of Yemeni humanitarian and health workers have averted famine and kept the death rate of the cholera epidemic remarkably low.
The ICRC's confidential humanitarian diplomacy around Yemen has been intense. We have worked quietly with influential states across the Middle East and in key multilateral diplomatic sites such as New York, Brussels, and Addis Ababa, where we can meet the representatives of many states in a single place. Our teams on the ground in Yemen have worked hard with all parties to ensure that their conduct of hostilities shows greater respect for the Geneva Conventions and that all warring parties meet their obligations to ensure the protection of and assistance for the civilian population, the wounded, and detainees. At the same time, this confidential diplomacy has been accompanied by a loud public awareness campaign. An important part of our humanitarian diplomacy is to bring the experience of victims to the attention of the global public and to do so in a way that puts people's suffering and risk in the context of IHL. Our mandate to promote IHL is a comprehensive one, which includes a focus on governments, nonstate armed groups, and the whole of society. Engaging public awareness of the laws of war and the humanitarian consequences of armed conflict is an important part of this, and involves all peoples of the world in the humanitarian cause.
Digital public diplomacy gives us a new and highly individualized way of communicating directly and in real time with governments, influential organizations, and citizens around the world. Our digital diplomacy is intended to raise political and public awareness and concern, and to generate a global ask for increased respect for IHL. We do not use our loud public voice to name and shame or call out individuals who may be responsible for violations. Rather, it is as neutral and impartial as our confidential dialogues. Both types of communication work purely to persuade the relevant authorities and other actors of influence to follow the rules of war and to heed the needs of affected populations for protection and assistance.
It would be disingenuous to pretend we do not have interests of our own to ensure the continuity of a humanitarian mission: maintaining our operational presence, guarding consent for our exceptional access to the victims of armed conflict, and ensuring good relationships with powerful governments and armed groups. We have to balance these interests in our confidential discussions. There are trade-offs in what we say and how we say it. Similar prudential questions of tone, timing, and topic that concern loud public advocacy also preoccupy private dialogue.
The Question of Silence
The ICRC's mainly confidential approach poses important questions about the moral value of silence.Footnote 10 Humanitarian silence—especially when it is clear that the ICRC knows a lot about violations and conditions in a conflict—may sometimes be perceived as complicity by contemporary activist culture. In many ways, the organization's confidential dialogues represent the ultimate “insider strategy” in humanitarian advocacy that seeks influence from within the target organization. In contrast, many NGOs present themselves as pursuing high-pressure “outsider strategies” that name and shame, although they are usually combining these with some form of insider strategy as well, whenever possible.Footnote 11
The ICRC approach recognizes that truth-telling is not always best done as truth-yelling, and it is very important that silence and discretion are not pathologized in political and humanitarian ethics. Speaking out can be right, but it can also be unwise for several reasons. Vulnerable communities and humanitarian workers can face serious and violent reprisals. A loud approach can also lead to humanitarian programs being closed down or harmfully obstructed. There are immediate life and death reasons why humanitarian silence may be wise. The feasibility of success is another criterion that can justify silence. The ethical calculation in public advocacy is legitimately changed if there is no reasonable hope of the effectiveness of speaking out in a given situation. There may also be no value added by the ICRC speaking out if many other agencies and governments are already doing so and achieving some success, or none. Indeed, there can be complementarity between loud human rights organizations speaking from afar and quiet humanitarian organizations staying on the ground. Regardless of the prospect of success, speaking out can also simply fulfill an important moral duty to present the truth. Speaking publicly can also bring an element of personal and organizational catharsis, which is not unimportant to relieve the moral stress of those forced to be observers in situations of extreme violence and suffering.
On the other hand, sometimes silence can also be strangely eloquent and powerful in itself. Sometimes, though we may say very little in front of the cameras, what we do not say about a particular situation may be clearly understood as condemnation in our body language, in our concern, and in our look. Representing the ICRC in public can sometimes feel like Mona Lisa diplomacy: that is, we are often required to keep a cryptic and ambiguous expression without actually passing comment as we honor our confidential dialogues.Footnote 12 There is a respectable history of silence in personal and political advocacy, as well as a shameful one. In his history of silence in the church, Diarmaid MacCulloch describes the silent look that Jesus gives to Peter, who has just denied him, as “one of the most eloquent quiet stares in human history.”Footnote 13 Silence may also signify unseen action. In the later stages of the Algerian War, Albert Camus adopted a deliberate position of silence on the subject when he felt that there was no more that could be usefully said. He was challenged loudly on this by a young Algerian at the award ceremony for his Nobel Prize in Stockholm. Camus replied, “Though I have been silent for a year and eight months, that does not mean I have stopped acting.”Footnote 14 This may sum up the position taken by the ICRC on certain occasions.
The risks of silence are real. In its history, the ICRC did not go public on the Holocaust and regrets this. Today, we mitigate the risk of this moral failure in our diplomacy in three main ways. First, we have developed a clear policy and practice of public communications that raises awareness of a people's suffering and needs in armed conflicts and the conduct of hostilities. This communication strategy has specific objectives: to focus on people's experience of armed conflict and the laws protecting them; to influence behavior and policy; and to empower people through certain lifesaving information.Footnote 15 Second, we may suspend our operations as a strong signal that we do not think our people are sufficiently safe or that our humanitarian dialogue is making the progress required. Finally, we have a clear policy on when we move from a confidential dialogue that is failing to more leveraged political mobilization of third parties to support humanitarian objectives, and then to public denunciation when we see no value left in a confidential dialogue.Footnote 16
The ICRC's humanitarian diplomacy has developed over many decades and continues to develop in a new digital age. The organization strives always to persuade people and power to abide by humanitarian norms. Our experience suggests that persuasion is an intricate craft that requires a clear humanitarian purpose, a determined global network with access to victims and to those in power, and a quiet practice of trusted confidential dialogues that is amplified by general humanitarian awareness–raising in the global public—and that uses outright denunciation only as a last resort.
