| Standards for Humanitarian Assessment
The methodology presented in the preceding chapter was developed in response to the need arising from the ad hoc approach used in the past for undertaking sanctions assessments, by which assessments were often performed without the use of a clearly defined, routine, and validated methodology based on a wellthoughtthrough Terms of Reference (ToR). more.......
The point of origin for many previous humanitarian assessments under sanctions has been a request in one of the resolutions/directives of the sanctioning authority for an assessment of the humanitarian and/or socio-economic implications of the imposed measures. more......
There has been considerable debate on who, and what agencies, should undertake assessments of the humanitarian implications of sanctions, especially when the sanctions are imposed by the United Nations. The report of the Interlaken Process (from which the draft text in section 6.2 above is drawn) cites past experience of the United Nations Security Council in requesting assessments from both the United Nations Secretariat and from Expert Panels. more.......
The scope of and approach to assessing humanitarian impacts under sanctions must be clearly defined in a Terms of Reference (ToR) developed for the assessment team. This task statement should include:
- Brief background to the sanctions regime (actual or proposed), including reference to the relevant legal text(s) (United Nations Security Council resolution, resolution of other intergovernmental organization, national legislation) imposing the sanctions; more......
A sanctions assessment must present some determination of the degree to which sanctions are affecting humanitarian conditions, separate from the effects caused by other factors. In some circumstances it may only be possible to provide a qualitative assessment of the degree to which sanctions influence humanitarian conditions, or indeed it may be impossible to separate out the discrete effects of sanctions at all. In such cases, the investigator should make clear the difficulties and must highlight the indeterminacy of the situation. more......
In some cases, the findings and determinations that are brought to the surface during a sanctions assessment do not make it into the written report of the endeavour, often as a result of document editing and time constraints. Therefore, any written assessment of the humanitarian implications of sanctions should include, at a minimum, the sections outlined below. This section listing can be used as a template by those responsible for undertaking such assessments: more.......
Transparency and accountability on the part of investigators and participants are critical to the integrity of the resulting assessment. To ensure transparency, investigators must be diligent in citing references for all data and information used in the assessment. In the case of key interviews where interviewee anonymity must be preserved, the investigator must, at a minimum, identify the “category” of interlocutor and the date and location of the interview. more......
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