Challenges for Ethical Humanitarian Health Responses in Contemporary Conflict Settings

This essay examines the pressures and narratives that constrain humanitarian health actors from meeting their commitments to ethical conduct. I focus on critical contemporary issues that exacerbate or generate new ethical concerns for humanitarians, such as the imperatives to be accountable to affected populations, to “decolonize” humanitarianism, and to respect intersectional diversity; and how maleficence should be interpreted in this changing context. I argue that by adopting certain practices-particularly those that create space for new voices and confront entrenched power systems-today's humanitarian health actors can remain true to their core ethical principles.