Humanitarianism vs Human Rights: a Practitioner's Perspective

[Figure: see text] The co-author of this article, Erich Weingartner, has worked internationally in both human rights and humanitarian aid. Based on his expertise, especially in the Korean peninsula, and on Lutheran theology, he analyzes the tensions between defending human rights and providing humanitarian aid, arguing that a crime and punishment paradigm cannot heal the divisions within our polarized world. The existential threats facing humanity require cooperation and reconciliation. He advocates abandoning dualism and confessing our own complicity in creating and perpetuating the current humanitarian and ecological crises.