International Disaster Management Ethics

Liza Ireni Saban

Description

Today's international disaster management community faces demanding political and ethical challenges. In International Disaster Management Ethics, Liza Ireni Saban suggests that it is crucial for international aid organizations engaged in disaster management to attempt to lift the moral fog that envelops their practice and to alert them to the ethical implications and meaning of their decisions and actions, commitment to exercising ethical judgment, and leadership. Drawing on examples from large scale natural disasters—the 2003 Bam earthquake in Iran, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the 2005 hurricanes that struck the US Gulf Coast, the 2010 Haitian earthquake, and the 2013 Philippines typhoon—Saban applies current prominent perspectives on global justice to international disaster management, arguing that a process of codification will enhance the capacity to professionalize distributive decision making. Rather than being obligatory, taking into account global distributive considerations will become a defining part of the profession at a global level, at a time when international disaster relief is facing more and more severe natural disasters.
Introduction

1. Introduction to International Disaster Management Ethics

2. Dilemmas and Ethical Issues in International Disaster Management

3. Global Distributive Justice

4. The Dependency Syndrome

5. Donation Fatigue

6. Corruption

7. Compensation

8. Code of Ethics for the International Disaster Management Practice

Conclusion
Notes
References
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Éthique et morale
• Ethique et morale
• National
• Central

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 30 septembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438461724
• Langue: English

Extrait

International Disaster Management Ethics
International Disaster Management Ethics
LIZA IRENI SABAN
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2016 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Jenn Bennett
Marketing, Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ireni Saban, Liza, author.
Title: International disaster management ethics / Liza Ireni Saban.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015042427 (print) | LCCN 2016011153 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438461717 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438461724 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Disaster relief—International cooperation. | Emergency management—International cooperation. | Disaster relief—Moral and ethical aspects.
Classification: LCC HV553 .I5887 2016 (print) | LCC HV553 (ebook) | DDC 174/.936334—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015042427
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Contents Introduction Chapter 1 Introduction to International Disaster Management Ethics Chapter 2 Dilemmas and Ethical Issues in International Disaster Management Chapter 3 Global Distributive Justice Chapter 4 The Dependency Syndrome Chapter 5 Donation Fatigue Chapter 6 Corruption Chapter 7 Compensation Chapter 8 Code of Ethics for the International Disaster Management Practice Conclusion Notes References Index
Introduction
With the increasing incidence and intensity of natural disasters, the international disaster management community has its hands full. Its time-constrained environment is complex and complicated, involving multiple responsibilities, challenges, and constituencies. International aid actors’ ability and commitment to meet immediate human need in times of disaster is tested during disaster events as they try to improve on the affected national governments’ ability to address the needs of the affected population by supplying relief resources and services. Large-scale disasters, often termed international disasters, overwhelm national governments’ capacities to respond. This follows the UN definition of natural disaster as 1 : “The consequences of events triggered by natural hazards that overwhelm local response capacity and seriously affect the social and economic development of a region.” 2
The frequency and severity of natural disasters is increasing. During 2000–2014, 6,084 natural disaster events were registered. The annual average of disaster frequency observed is about 400 natural disasters per year. Natural disasters caused the death of 1,218,296 people, affecting 2,919,832,577 people worldwide. 3 Total reported economic damage from natural disasters is estimated at US$ 167 billion. 4 Natural disasters affect both developed and developing countries across the globe; China, the United States, the Philippines, India, and Indonesia are considered the five countries that are most frequently hit by natural disasters.
In these extreme events, response and relief efforts are quickly mobilized by the international disaster management community. The international disaster management community involves a wide range of actors embedded in fluid and complex networks of association. The international disaster management community consists of victims, governments of the affected countries, governments of other countries and their emergency agencies, international organizations, regional organizations, and NGOs. Too often, national governments accuse international relief actors of overlooking the local context in which they operate, and even that their underlying goal is to broaden their agendas and question the priorities and methods of the elite-controlled political processes (Aldrich and Crook 2008). Although international relief organizations may not have a full understanding of the wider socio-economic context in which response and relief actions occur, evidence from various disaster settings points to lack of confidence on the part of international aid organizations regarding the capacity of the affected government to effectively deliver relief aid to its citizens. This mutual distrust turns into greater inconsistency in the disaster policy implementation process, thus failing to manifest effective disaster response (Adams and Balfour 2009, Ink 2006, Jia 2008, Menzel 2006, Mooney 2009, Polman 2010, Yang 2008).
Nonetheless, there is another set of challenges faced by the international disaster management community that is equally implicated in effective disaster management: The potential for disunity, when considering the vast differences in international aid actors’ values, preferences, and institutional settings.
The international disaster management community is composed of innumerable agencies with different skills, reporting channels, level of responsibility, and ethical cultures. In a disaster management setting, international aid organizations must function in the midst of competing claims about the distribution of resources, conflicting views of the management of personnel, scarcity of appropriate information, and lack of coordination. It seems that Kevin M. Cahill’s statement that “Managing complex humanitarian emergencies, particularly in the midst of conflicts and disasters, is not a field for amateurs” (Cahill 2013, 385) is truer than ever.
Viewed in this way, universalizing professional and ethical obligations through a process of codification may help to build trust with the disaster-affected government and tackle the unintended consequences of immediate short-term international response for people affected by natural disasters. Studies have shown that in the face of a disaster event, effective coordination compensates for scarce resources and uncertainty (Comfort and Haase 2006, Comfort, Ko, and Zagorecki 2006, Coppola 2011, Drabek 2003, Kapucu 2006, 2008, Kapucu, Arslan, and Collins 2010, Kapucu, Augustin, and Garayev 2009, Kobila, Meek, and Zia 2010, McEntire 2002, Mitchell 2006, Moynihan 2012, Nolte, Martin, and Boenigk 2012, Vasavada 2013). Professionalism through the process of codification in international disaster management then acts to establish the rules, norms, and assumptions that shape the distribution of aid resources by the overall international aid community. Professionalism provides controls that regulate how international aid actors manage ambiguity and ethical dilemmas.
A strategy for universalizing professional understandings of ethics in international disaster management is designed to clarify and identify international disaster management professions across a range of organizational and national contexts. Clearly, consideration of ethics in making international disaster management professional must ensure that this institution is just. During and after a disaster event, the international disaster management community is faced with ethical dilemmas regarding appropriate and fair allocation of relief and response resources and services. While it is desirable for the management regime to promote immediate and efficient distribution of response and relief resources, long-term distributional consequences often go unrecognized within the overwhelming, time-constrained environment created by disaster events. The fact that the international disaster management community intervenes in distributional decision making with varying degrees of legitimacy and political will, leads to having special responsibilities to maintain the highest ethical standards in its role as enabler, coordinator, and facilitator to meet human need in times of disaster. It is suggested then that humanitarian aid and relief organizations are not morally neutral agents judged on their effectiveness or reduction of disaster vulnerabilities, but rather moral agents that serve cosmopolitan values, and are concerned with justification of the ends and means by which those values are enacted. This is the basis of the international disaster management community’s claim to moral legitimacy in governance.
It is argued that the recasting of ethical responsibility in terms of unintended and indirect consequences of distribution of relief resources constructs ethics of international disaster management on global interconnectivity. More troubling than the need to address immediate needs and quickly deliver humanitarian aid and relief, however, are the long-term implications of the international disaster management community’s emergency efforts. Thus, large-scale disasters make international aid organizations more reliant on coordination and thus reliant on the establishment of common principles, common goals, and mutual actions. For that, a uniform set of ethical guidelines for international aid actors must articulate the responsibility to meet the demand of global distributive justice.
In making visible professional responsibility for international disaster management practitioners, global distributive justice has the capacity provide common ground to raise consciousness about the demanding political and ethical challenges faced by the international disaster management community. This book draws on current prominent perspectives on global justice to international disaster management, such as the consequence-oriented approach developed by Peter Singer, the rights- and institutions-oriented approach of Thomas Pogge, and the capabilities-oriented approach of Amartya Sen, drawing examples from recent large scale natural disasters, nam