"The moral profit of the qualification 'humanitarian' is such that it may be used extensively and sometimes cynically to justify any sort of action, including paradoxically the use of the armed force. Who could be against the noble goal of saving lives? As political scientist and former UN consultant Thomas Weiss affirms, "humanity and the sanctity of life is the only genuine first order principle of intervention. The protection of the right to life, broadly interpreted, belongs to the category of obligations who's respect is in the interest of all states. Others, including the sacred trio of neutrality, impartiality and consent, as well as legalistic interpretations of the desirability about UN approval are second order principles." Following this line it is easy to see how the international order can be shaken by interruption of humanitarian reason as a supreme argument. The representation of the world that logically derives from this affirmation relies on the tripartite division between those who take lives, those whose lives are endangered and those who save lives. The military, the victims and the humanitarians."

Didier Fassin - Critique of Humanitarian Reason