David HOLLENBACH. Humanity in Crisis: Ethical and Religious Response to Refugees. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2019. pp. x + 197. $39.95 pb. ISBN 978-1-62616-718-6. Reviewed by Moni McIntyre, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.

In this meticulously researched and carefully written volume, Jesuit David Hollenbach clearly and thoughtfully articulates the responsibilities of nations toward refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs).  The author describes the immensity of the effects of worldwide war and conflict, as well as climate change, on those least able to survive the chaos and violence around them.  These people live in Syria, South Sudan, Central African Republic, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, Yemen, Myanmar, and other countries unable to provide decent living conditions for their people.  Millions of them, dying and displaced within their borders, as well as countless others forced to seek refuge in other countries, seek to survive the humanitarian crises all around them.  The author notes that a humanitarian crisis is “any situation in which there is widespread threat to life, physical safety, health or basic subsistence that is beyond the coping capacity of individuals and the communities in which they reside” (2).

Hollenbach argues that wealthy nations bear a major responsibility during humanitarian crises: these nations must welcome displaced peoples.  Poor nations surrounding troubled countries absorb most of the refugees.  Basic human decency and justice require wealthy nations to relieve the burden borne by poor nations in a substantial way.  Many wealthy nations refuse to welcome refugees and significantly assist those poor nations bearing insurmountable burdens because of the pressure of so many refugees flooding their borders.  These wealthy nations act unethically because they place undue burdens on those least able to bear them. 

In Chapter 1, “Threats to Humanity,” Hollenbach describes contemporary humanitarian crises in various countries, particularly Syria. He follows that with a weakening sense of the duty to respond in the global community.  The decline of the international institutions put in place after World War II reflects an ethical gap between a recognition of the human dignity of the poor in warring countries and the demands that protecting their dignity places on those with the means to do so.

Chapter 2, “Humanity as Moral Standard,” examines moral obligations toward refugees and other displaced persons, while Chapter 3, “Religious Traditions and Humanitarian Response,” considers the response of faith-based institutions to human calamity.  In each of these chapters, the author roots the treatment of desperate humanity in the dignity of each person.  While he lists Christian resources for responses to crises in the latter chapter, no disjuncture appears between humanitarian values and any religious norms concerning human dignity.  Likewise, Chapter 4, “Religious Action Today,” presents the ways in which social justice permeates the best of religious impulses in ministry today, regardless of faith tradition.

Chapter 5, “Borders and Shared Humanity,” explains that all persons, regardless of their home or native land, have a duty to aid those who suffer.  Hollenbach argues for a “polycentric understanding of responsibility,” such that “no one community, country or agency bears the responsibility to act all on its own” (78).  Still, no one may shirk their responsibility to come to the assistance of one who suffers.

Chapter 6, “Rights and Negative Duties,” explores the notion of who needs protection beyond refugees.  Hollenbach always comes back to human rights as the center of his agenda. Chapter 7, “Positive Duties and Shared Responsibility,” posits the criteria for responsibility. The author claims that “how to achieve greater fairness in sharing the responsibility toward those affected by emergencies is perhaps the greatest ethical challenge facing the humanitarian movement today” (112).  

In Chapter 8, “Acting Across Borders,” Hollenbach looks at three areas where duties to take positive action across borders arise: internally displaced people within the borders of another nation; the duty to protect people in other countries against atrocity; and how to assist refugees and internally displaced persons. The last chapter, “Justice and Root Causes,” challenges readers to examine their own country’s response to refugees and violence.  The author addresses the demands of justice and prevention as well as peacemaking and reconciliation.  He looks at the familiar themes of restorative and retributive justice in the light of the violence around the world today.  Hollenbach pays attention to poverty as a cause of worldwide violence and the much-needed response of wealthy nations.

This author never falls into platitudes or easy solutions.  His is a thoughtful and challenging book that invites the reader to ponder the profundities that can move us beyond the present even while he examines the past that led us here.  Five stars!