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The Sphere Project: Next Steps in Moving Toward a Rights-Based Approach to Humanitarian Assistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Helen Ouyang ,
Michael VanRooyen  and
Sofia Gruskin
Helen Ouyang*
Affiliation:
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA Division of International Health and Humanitarian Programs, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Department of Emergency Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA Department of Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Michael VanRooyen
Affiliation:
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA Division of International Health and Humanitarian Programs, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Department of Emergency Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Sofia Gruskin
Affiliation:
Program on International Health and Human Rights, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
*
Department of Emergency Medicine75 Francis StreetNeville House, Floor 2Boston, Massachusetts 02115USA E-mail: houyang@partners.org
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Abstract

Since the Sphere Project was launched in 1997, it has sought to integrate principles of human rights norms with adherence to technical standards. While the Sphere Handbook has evolved as both a field tool and a resource for articulating human rights, it does not fully offer a rights-based approach to humanitarian assistance. In the handbook's current edition, its Humanitarian Charter asserts and affirms human rights principles, but the technical Minimum Standards Section that follows has yet to truly embody a rightsbased approach; that is, it does not clarify how to operationalize human rights in the field, particularly with respect to the health sector. Using human rights documents, the Sphere documents, and existing, published literature in the field of humanitarian practice and human rights, this article provides critical commentary and suggests how strengthening the link between rights and standards, as well as rhetoric and action, can advance the Sphere Project beyond its current applicability as a handbook of technical standards in the field to operationalizing an effective rights-based approach to humanitarian aid.

Keywords

human rightshumanitarian assistanceSphere project
Type
Special Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , June 2009 , pp. 147 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2009

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