The surprising rebirth of the Arab League and the emergence of both the League and the GCC onto the international stage promoting varied types of humanitarian intervention in both Libya and Syria, as well as more covert efforts to promote dialogue and transition elsewhere in the region was one of the most interesting aspects of the Arab Spring. This paper examines the diffusion of global norms surrounding humanitarianism into the region and their expression through these two international organisations. It explores whether it was an alignment of wider geo-political interests which drove this dramatic change of approach by these organisations, with the norms simply providing convenient cover, or whether global norms have had a lasting impact on perceptions of legitimacy, humanitarianism and the importance of sovereignty. At the same time, it also examines the extent to which global norms have been mediated through local culture and been given a distinctive Middle Eastern flavour, and asks what role, if any, these organisations played in this process. Through the use of discourse analysis of statements issued by these bodies, opinion poll responses and social media trends the paper correlates the penetration of the language of humanitarianism during this febrile period and how this was reflected by the organisations themselves not as mere tools of the states alone but as regional actors which are capable of reflecting broader opinions beyond the governments of the member states, especially in the case of the Arab League. The paper contends that while these norms and institutions were undoubtedly co-opted by the member states there is significant evidence that the important legitimating effect of the League and GCC came independently of the states use of them, indicating contrary to existing literature on this topic (Columbo, 2017; Wajner & Kacowicz 2018; Sever 2019) these organisations can be seen to be sites of reaction norms, borrowing from biology and adding a new tool to the conceptualisation of norm cascades (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998). Despite the contention in the literature that these bodies have failed (e.g. Barnett & Solingen 2007) the paper contents that these IOs still remain important nodes in wider processes of regionalisation which is slowly reshaping the Middle East.