Towards a Typology of Humanitarian Access Denial

Classified by the UN as one of five core challenges to civilian protection, humanitarian access denial is an increasingly urgent dilemma facing humanitarian actors. Conventional thinking about humanitarian access denial focuses on its outcomes rather than factors that shape its occurrence. The norms associated with humanitarian access and civilian protection are highly institutionalised at the intergovernmental level, yet states demonstrate considerable variation in their compliance with them at the domestic level. Utilising an interpretivist approach, we analyse how actions taken by states to deny humanitarian access in Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and Darfur/Sudan are given meaning and how they come to be understood by state actors themselves as a conduit to pursue other goals. We propose a descriptive typology of humanitarian access denial, and discuss the implications this phenomenon carries for civilian protection by humanitarian actors.