Merits
Doctors Without Borders is an international non-governmental humanitarian organization that provides emergency medical assistance to populations affected by famine, epidemics, forced migration, natural disasters and armed conflicts. The last decade of the XX century was the time of the real heyday of the organization and its wide international recognition. In the 1990s MSF has received numerous international prizes and awards for its humanitarian work and contribution to peace. (Kanehara et al. 24) The apotheosis of the popularity of Doctors Without Borders was the presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 for humanitarian work and assistance to victims of armed conflicts, natural and man-made disasters.
Scale of Organization
It is worth emphasizing the worldwide fame and prevalence of the organization. Today, Doctors Without Borders operates in more than 70 countries around the world, implementing an average of about 500 projects annually and the organization has over 45,000 employees (Kanehara et al. 13). From an international legal point of view, MSF is an international association of 24 national associations around the world that are independent legal entities and have the right to elect their own board and president (Kanehara et al. 15). Members of MSF are primarily volunteers working in field missions. They receive a small remuneration in accordance with contracts that are concluded for at least six to nine months.
Quality and Integrity
DWB provides all the necessary support to the population affected by natural or man-made disasters, as well as victims of armed conflicts, regardless of race, religion, political beliefs, officially observing strict neutrality and impartiality for the sake of medical ethics. Volunteers and staff members of this INGO are committed to professional ethics in order to maintain complete independence from all kinds of political, religious and economic forces. The founding documents of the organization emphasize that all members of the organization must be aware of the risks associated with their professional activities. In this regard, they, their family members or their proxies do not have the right to demand material compensation, except in cases where the organization itself is able to provide all possible assistance.
Advantages
A distinctive feature of the activities of Doctors Without Borders is the promptness in the deployment of a humanitarian operation, which is achieved thanks to a superbly streamlined first aid mechanism. The organization has dedicated medical kits located in four main logistics centers: Europe, East Africa, Central America and East Asia (Steger 32). These kits are gigantic first-aid kits that include everything you need to start a large-scale medical campaign, ready to be transported and used within hours (Steger 47). In addition, Doctors Without Borders has developed emergency training manuals, which are used with success by less-skilled local health workers (Krieger et al. 65). At the same time, the key task of field missions, in addition to providing urgent medical assistance, is to monitor and protect human rights.
Relevance Today
At the moment, there are several aggravated military conflicts in the world, in which the activities of Doctors Without Borders are most in demand. First, it is worth noting the crisis in the Middle East, in which a number of states have a large number of wounded and suffering people during military operations (Krieger et al. 34). Due to the particular complexity of the region and access to it, the organization needs additional funding in the field of logistics and equipment for volunteers. Separately, it is worth noting the military conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which today has the most severe phase. The Ukrainian needs a huge amount of medical support, since the bombing of cities and armed clashes take place regularly. At the moment, the number of wounded is growing every day, and Doctors Without Borders is able to make a significant contribution to the health of Ukrainians.
Works Cited
Kanehara, Atsuko, Côté, Charles-Emmanuel, Scott, Karen N., and Claussen, Kathleen. Changing Actors in International Law. Brill, 2020.
Krieger, Heike, Lahmann, Christian, and Geiß, Robin. The ‘Legal Pluriverse’ surrounding multinational military operations. Oxford University Press, 2020.
Steger, Florian. Migration and medicine. Verlag Karl Alber, 2021.