Adverse Impacts
A growing body of qualitative and quantitative evidence documents how certain measures designed and applied to counter terrorism can impede or prevent humanitarian and medical activities in armed conflicts.
In a nutshell
Counterterrorism measures may lead to diminished or complete lack of access by humanitarian and medical actors to the persons affected by an armed conflict that is also characterized as a counterterrorism context, or those measures may adversely affect the scope, amount, or quality of humanitarian and medical services provided to such persons.
Types of impacts
The diverse array of detrimental effects of certain counterterrorism measures on humanitarian and medical activities may be grouped into several cross-cutting categories, including operational, financial, security, legal, and reputational effects.
These effects may be traced to at least two contemporary approaches, which are often linked in practice, to countering terrorism.
Approach #1
A range of States characterize their potential or actual adversaries as terrorists or otherwise allege that those adversaries — or at least individual members of an adversary party — engage in acts of terrorism or in supporting acts of terrorism. In turn, some States invoke such characterizations to justify depriving those deemed terrorists of certain rights and other protections, including receiving humanitarian and medical activities. Under this framing, humanitarian and medical activities are conceptualized as a form of direct support to terrorists. In practice, such approaches may impede or prevent certain humanitarian and medical activities, including the provision of medical care to wounded and sick members of the adversary party; visits and material assistance to detainees suspected of or condemned for being members of a terrorist organization; facilitation of family visits to such detainees; first-aid trainings; war-surgery seminars; and IHL dissemination to members of armed opposition groups included in terrorist lists.
Approach #2
An array of States characterize certain aspects of humanitarian and medical activities themselves as facilitating or otherwise contributing — (in)directly, (un)intentionally, or (un)knowingly — to the objectives of terrorist entities, individual terrorists, or acts of terrorism. In turn, some of those States invoke these characterizations as grounds to prohibit or limit humanitarian and medical services. Under this framing, humanitarian and medical activities are conceptualized as a form of direct or indirect support to or benefit for terrorists. In practice, these characterizations may impede or prevent humanitarian and medical activities meant to be taken in relation to a party to an armed conflict (including, for example, a non-state party characterized as a terrorist group) or to the civilian population in the territory of, or otherwise subject to the control of, such an adversary party. Such impeded or prevented humanitarian and medical activities may involve practical measures, for example, to obtain secure access to civilians in need and fighters hors de combat (for instance, payment of tolls) or to provide humanitarian and medical services to the affected people.
Underlying Assumptions
These detrimental impacts on humanitarian and medical activities typically arise where the rationale underlying a counterterrorism measure is rooted in one or more of the following assumptions.
1
That otherwise-“innocuous” assistance to a terrorist entity, including certain types of humanitarian and medical activities, can “free up” the entity’s resources to engage in terrorist conduct (the fungibility theory).
2
That a State, organization, or individual might operate under a false humanitarian or medical guise to support a terrorist entity (the false-front theory).
3
That a terrorist entity might dupe well-intentioned-but-naïve humanitarian and medical actors into serving as terrorism-support conduits (the naïve-humanitarians theory).
