Centre for Humanitarianism, International Cooperation, and Global Order
Conceived in the context of the current crisis of multilateral institutions and international cooperation, this Centre mobilises interdisciplinary research to study the effects of contemporary economic, geopolitical, and ideological shocks on international organisations working in the fields of emergency relief, development aid, and human rights protection, and their ability to devise effective strategic responses.
The Centre's distinctive contribution is its ability to connect historical research with policy and practice in a changing global order, and its commitment to fostering conversations between historians, economists, sociologists, political scientists, and legal scholars.
The Centre's research efforts are animated by the following questions:
- How can a study of humanitarianism's past help us make sense of its currently troubled present?
- Are we witnessing a shift to a more representative humanitarian system?
- What does it mean to give more of a voice to the preferences of people affected by crises in the distribution of emergency relief and development aid?
- Will less foreign aid end up going through the international system and more through national channels?
- Will the interests of the future be placed on a par with those of the present, as humanity grapples with climate-induced issues?
- Will the plethora of UN agencies consolidate themselves and their functions, or will the global governance system collapse amidst infighting between its many fiefdoms?
- If the UN is now overstretched, as well as underfunded, is its future to return to its roots or, alternatively, try to become an organisation that is more of a significant departure from its past?
Our projects
The Nuffield Humanitarian Forum creates space for intellectual exchange between leaders of the international system for relief, development, and human rights. It brings to bear a historical perspective on contemporary challenges and bridges the gap between research, policy, and practice. Key areas for consideration include:
- Assessing how donor governments can work together with the UN and with INGOs to increase genuine empowerment and ownership of relief and development programmes by local actors.
- Identifying the narratives that improve domestic support for relief, development, and human rights.
- Understanding the comparative advantages of different actors within what we call the "international humanitarian system" or "global aid regime".
- Developing new types of partnerships between international aid agencies and less-traditional humanitarian actors such as diaspora groups, philanthropic foundations, and large corporations.
- Defining what makes emergency relief and development work ‘legitimate’ – and where the challenges to such legitimacy stem from.
- Asking where to take the momentum of global development in the face of existential challenges, such as critiques of Western universalism and growing geopolitical contestation, and what role other non-Western powers, such as India, Turkey, and China, might play.
The research project "Rethinking Global Governance and Human Security: What lessons can we learn from the pivotal decade of the 1990s?", aims to inform policy on today's complex global challenges - including conflict, organised crime, climate change, and migration. This is a Konrad Adenauer Synergy research project, which is funded by the Alfred Landecker Foundation, and is carried out jointly by the Centre for Advanced Studies in International History and Law at the University of Cologne and Nuffield College, Oxford.
The project concentrates on investigating the pivotal character of the decade of the 1990s for the mobilisation of the international system. Key areas of study include:
- An examination of violent conflicts and interventions in various global crises of the time.
- An analysis of the ensuing peacekeeping and peace-enforcement operations in the context of global governance and human security.
- Asking how the experiences of the 1990s give rise to the notion of “failures” and “successes” of global governance.
- Examining the nature and extent of the involvement of key states in global governance and human security.
More information about the Rethinking Global Governance and Human Security project
The aim of the Civil Society Work Stream of the Global Commission on Modern Slavery is to:
- Evaluate the anti-trafficking and anti-slavery strategies of leading International Organisations (IO) and International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs);
- Identify the key challenges faced by Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in their effort to prevent human trafficking;
- Promote and strengthen civil society’s ‘countervailing power’ against these offences by turning CSOs into
first responders.
