actors in (post)-conflict societies?

Normative questions of what human rights and humanitarian NGOs are permitted and required to do in conflict and post-conflict societies are relatively neglected in the current debates about NGOs. Are they permissible agents? A multi-disciplinary approach is used to dissect this question. It is concluded that on the one hand clear duties for these NGOs can be discerned; they are often the sole agents in operation that can safeguard some respect for human rights. On the other hand, they complicate, if not frustrate, the purpose for which they came into action, the formation of a stable state that can itself respect human rights