Humanitarianism

Humanitarianism is a set of beliefs, practices and principles centered on the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotional reasons. Humanitarian ideals tend to be cosmopolitan, entailing compassion across national borders. In contrast to charity and philanthropy (which apply to both domestic and international projects), humanitarianism tends to involve helping populations affected by international emergencies, such as wars and disasters.

One aspect involves voluntary emergency aid overlapping with human rights advocacy, actions taken by governments, development assistance, and domestic philanthropy. Other critical issues include correlation with religious beliefs, motivation of aid between altruism, market affinity, social control imperialism and neo-colonialism, gender and class relations, and humanitarian agencies. A practitioner is known as a humanitarian.

While humanitarianism on a local and national level can be traced far back in history, scholars of international politics tend to identify the advent of global humanitarian impulses to the 19th century. The creation of the International Red Cross in 1863 is considered a key juncture in global humanitarianism. The scope of humanitarianism has expanded over time alongside shifting perceptions of who counts as "human" and whose lives are worth saving.