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Through ethnographic observations from international humanitarian work and interviews with humanitarian professionals, Joe Cropp's The Humanitarian Fix: Navigating Civilian Protection in Contemporary Wars engagingly describes the daily practice of humanitarian negotiation and persuasion. The book illustrates how the international humanitarian has morphed from the more classical neutral intermediary to emerge as a broker and translator with a toolbox of more official and less official reframings of international law and policy to grapple with local problems and persuade different actors. In this review essay, I highlight the hidden insight for international lawyers in Cropp's book regarding questions of universality and pluralism in international humanitarian law and the double-bind practitioners face: while these practices of translation look like an openness to pluralism in humanitarian law, within the current international framework, any translation by necessity re-emphasises how these reframings are not the law, and ultimately work as techniques to reinforce the authority and claimed universality of the central system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper scrutinises the modus operandi of classical and political humanitarianism: the use of ambiguity and prescription to frame calls for international action to protect civilians, and public commentary on jus in bello and jus ad bellum. It does so by innovatively considering the perspectives of belligerents alongside those of humanitarian actors, so as to identify how belligerents have responded to the two humanitarian modus operandi, and to ascertain the connection of humanitarian actors to the wars and international military interventions that they have implicitly or explicitly called for or endorsed. The paper finds that the response of belligerents differs from what both classical and political humanitarians expect. Even where humanitarians maintain ambiguity, the intention to will military action remains present and even the documentation and reporting of violence will bolster military intervention. Such consequences will be perceptible to belligerents, who may restrict humanitarian space. When humanitarians advance jus ad bellum perspectives, the humanitarian identity envisioned by classicists is not necessarily compromised. But belligerents are positively influenced by such perspectives only when those perspectives coincide with their own position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humanitarian action is under pressure on two fronts. On one side, western nations seek to use aid as a foreign policy tool, threatening the neutral image of humanitarian actors and placing them under suspicion. On the other, and in partial reaction to this, host states are re-asserting sovereignty and imposing new limits on humanitarian action in their territory. In many contexts, organisations are being limited by law or practice from addressing abuse of the populations they seek to assist. This is not a surprising reaction from states whose actions are scrutinised; but it is making inroads on the confidence of humanitarian actors themselves. Some are beginning to question not only the feasibility but also the appropriateness of the protection work they have taken on since the 1990s. The article seeks to reinforce the importance and legitimacy of humanitarian protection by showing that both assistance and protection are key goals of humanitarian action as defined by international law. It urges organisations to fight for the space the law has granted, in order to most effectively help the victims of armed conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]