COLLISION AND HARMONIZATION OF HUMANITARIAN PRINCIPLES

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which humanitarian organizations define, incorporate, and mobilize global ethical guidelines in their comprehensive and normative frameworks, and strategies for action. The
organizations that assemble the Chilean Humanitarian Aid Network and their tensions in the adoption of humanitarian principles are used as a case study. Three general harmonization formulas are identified: normative syncretism, minimalist interpretation of financial independence, and
adoption of the principles in peripheral structures and operational equivalents. Finally, it is suggested that adhering to the principle of neutrality presents advantages and disadvantages for the humanitarian
system, hence the harmonization of the  humanitarian regime is not necessarily preferable to its normative dispersion.