Response by Arthur E. Dewey

The personnel on the spot seem to have less and less guidance from their supervisors to help them cross check the moral compass.

Ken Wilson correctly notes that “...challenges for the relief officials and institutions are ever more complex and decisions that constitute ethical dilemmas fall increasingly to them because of the extent of the policy uncertainties and the breath of the mandates.” In simpler terms, the junior field official needs to be ready to make the ethical call. He or she is not going to get much help from above.

Some of the most inspiring profiles in courage within the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees are based on junior and middle level officers making correct and courageous ethical calls, often in the absence of specific guidance from headquarters and sometimes in defiance of guidance from Geneva when the field officers’ reading of the local situation convinced them Geneva was wrong. These inspirational actions by junior officers consulting their moral compasses by far eclipsed the occasional lapses in morality and courage which also occurred in the field.

To be sure, it is dispiriting when leaders at the policy level fail to recognize and reward such behavior in the field. It is devastating when headquarters staff try to penalize a junior officer who has made an ethical call which conflicts with the interests or values of the headquarters bureaucrat. Peer sanctions were attempted, for example, when a courageous young UNHCR officer assisted Ethiopian Jews fleeing into Sudan in the early Eighties because it was not considered politically correct by some of the staff in UNHCR. Another more senior official was chastised for a rescue operation which facilitated the flight to safety of 80,000 Ugandan refugees in Southern Sudan back across the river into Uganda because the staff person involved did not have a visa.

Jacques Cuenod’s response also cites several specific cases to illustrate the moral dilemmas facing persons assisting and protecting refugees and the displaced. This is by far the most illuminating and effective way to articulate the complexities of these issues and the requirements for the highest qualities of courage, professionalism and moral fortitude in order to discharge adequately one’s assistance and protection duties.

The dilemmas associated with protection and assistance of refugees and displaced, as the authors so rightly state, are arguably the most complex and difficult of all the ethical calls in the humanitarian field. In today’s vastly more dangerous and complicated world, these dilemmas can only grow more intense. And the personnel on the spot seem to have less and less guidance from their supervisors to help them cross check the moral compass.

As long as assistance staff are willing to put everything on the line for ethical principles, there is hope for progress in adhering to higher standards of ethical norms in the ever growing field of disaster management. To the extent that the work of research projects such as this are embraced in the international humanitarian community, there is hope for better performance in assisting the victims of these disasters to achieve self-sufficiency and escape from their vicious cycle of despair.

Q. What steps might agencies take to improve their response to the ethical dilemmas involved in assisting displaced and refugees?

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Q. Describe an experience, you have had regarding ethical decisions made by staff which conflict with agency prerogatives. How might agencies and staff resolve these dilemmas?

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SUGGESTED ANSWERS (from top question)

Promoting inter-agency communication; providing human rights training; building trust with displaced and refugees; understanding the political environment; preparing staff psychologically to deal with ethical challenges.