Key to humanitarian work is the Humanitarian Charter.
The Humanitarian Charter expresses agencies’ commitment to fundamental humanitarian principles and to achieving the Sphere minimum standards.
The Humanitarian Charter enshrines the following key principles:
- the right to life with dignity
- the distinction between combatants and non-combatants
- the principle of non-refoulement
‘No Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler“) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.’ (Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951)
We’ll look in more detail at the Humanitarian Charter in the second part of the introduction.
Our question for now is:
How do we convert the principles and values of the Humanitarian Charter into action?
The Humanitarian Charter says that we, as humanitarian workers,
expect to be held accountable … and undertake to develop systems for accountability within our respective agencies, consortia and federations. We acknowledge that our fundamental accountability must be to those we seek to assist
The Sphere project and the resulting Sphere handbook aim to provide these common operational principles and standards that will also improve individual skills and capabilities and facilitate coordination between involved agencies.