FROM WORDS TO ACTIONS: LOCATING CHALLENGES FOR THE EUROPEAN AND NORTH AMERICAN APPROACHES TO HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE DIPLOMACY IN THE COMPLEX SYRIAN CRISIS

Back to Page Authors: Mulry Mondelice

---

Keywords: humanitarian assistance, Syrian crisis, foreign and defense policy, European Union's external action

---

Abstract: In the context of increasing humanitarian needs, at the heart of multilateral diplomacy, human rights promotion and humanitarian assistance discourses are important components of international actors’ external actions. In particular, American and Canadian foreign policy and the European Union (EU) approaches have evolved in conceptualizing human rights as part of the rule of law doctrine, as well as humanitarian assistance in both natural disasters and conflicts contexts. While this places those actors as biggest donors in responding to crisis worldwide, the diversity of stakeholders, processes and actions taken to promote human rights abroad and to provide humanitarian assistance remain complex and somehow unclear.

---