The ICRC Law and Policy team has posted my blog response to an earlier blog critique of my argument to scale back humanitarian action. Writing in a personal capacity, the ICRC’s Ricardo Fal-Dutra Santos suggested it was time for humanitarian action to expand, not contract, as argued in my paper The New Humanitarian Basics.

Not that I’m thin-skinned, or maybe I am, but I took the opportunity to push back. A sample: “is the sector responsible for stranding people in the humanitarian alibi—in crises where the urgent trumps the important in perpetuity? ”

Thanks to the ICRC for their being so open to this discussion.