a right to interfere new humanitarianism

Journal of International Development

J[ Int[ Dev[ 01\ 714Ð731 "1999#

Copyright Þ 1999 John Wiley + Sons\ Ltd[

A RIGHT TO INTERFERE< BERNARDKOUCHNER AND THE NEW

HUMANITARIANISM

TIM ALLEN0� and DAVID STYAN1

0 Development Studies Institute\ London School of Economics\ London\ UK1 Birkbeck Colle`e\ London\ UK

Abstract] This paper examines French in~uence on humanitarian intervention\ and in

particular focuses on the role of Bernard Kouchner and the promotion of international

interference within sovereign states[ It is argued that the English language literature on

humanitarianism has tended to overlook or downplay the importance of Kouchner|s

activities\ which in fact have far!reaching implications[ The origins of Kouchner|s notion

of a legal obligation to interfere are traced back to the Biafra war\ and to _erce debates

about {third!worldism| in Paris[ It is pointed out how key UN General Assembly and

Security Council Resolutions re~ect Kouchner|s impact\ and how he is ascribing his

ideas to the UN system as a whole in his current position as head of the UN Mission

on Kosovo[ Copyright Þ 1999 John Wiley + Sons\ Ltd[

It was a French idea [ [ [ We came\ crossing the border [ [ [ The appeal must notcome from the government\ but the voice of the victims [ [ [ The right to interferehas now been written into 049 resolutions of the United Nations[ Victims arenow the category of international law[ So we succeeded [ [ [ This is the revolution[ [ [ The victim\ not the government\ speaking in the name of the victim*for the_rst time [ [ [ We are coming back to |57[ We want to change the world[ We wantno more Auschwitz\ no more Cambodia\ no more Rwanda\ no more Biafra["Bernard Kouchner\ compilation of statements from a taped interview*in Engl!ish*with Tim Allen\ April 0888#

The last two decades of the twentieth century witnessed a shift towards increasedinterventionism in the name of humanitarianism[ Since 0877\ the UN has launchedmore Blue Helmet operations than during the previous 32 years\ while the percentageof ODA allocated to emergencies rose from around 1 per cent in 0889 to a peak of 7per cent in 0883[ During these years there was also intense news media coverage of

� Correspondence to] Tim Allen\ DESTIN\ LSE\ Houghton Street\ London\ WC1A 1AE\ UK[ E!mail]t[allenÝlse[ac[uk

715 T[ Allen and D[ Styan

Copyright Þ 1999 John Wiley + Sons\ Ltd[ J[ Int[ Dev[ 01\ 714Ð731 "1999#

particular places\ which utilized new technologies for {real time| reporting[ A resultwas considerable public interest and concern in industrialized countries\ and alsowidespread awareness of several spectacular failures[

These developments have far reaching rami_cations and\ not surprisingly\ havebeen the subject of a great deal of interest by development analysts and practitionersalike[ However\ a curious omission in much of the English language discussion of this{new humanitarianism| is the signi_cance of French ideas and in~uence[ In particularthere has been little interest in the controversy provoked by the activities of BernardKouchner\ the man who claims to have invented the whole approach[ Our purposehere is to help redress the balance[

We begin by introducing ideas about humanitarian intervention\ and draw attentionto important ambiguities of conception[ We then go on to review brie~y the evolutionof humanitarian policy from the late 0859s as it is generally perceived in the Englishlanguage literature[ Such writings often recognize the role of French medical NGOssuch as Me�decins Sans Frontie�res\ but rarely attempt to understand the speci_c Frenchnational context in which they evolved[ The paper then traces the roots of debatesabout le droit d|inè�rence in the changing intellectual and political environment withinFrance from the mid!seventies onwards[ It charts the construction and critiques oftiersmondiste ideas among French media\ NGOs and policy makers\ particularlyduring the 0879s[ It also highlights the contradiction between the idea of humanitarianinè�rence and France|s established African policy of military support for allies\ andcomments on the impact of the idea of inè�rence abroad[

Despite the heavily personalized\ apparently insular\ indeed incestuous\ nature ofmuch Parisian intellectual debate which underpinned the idea of le droit d|inè�rence\our argument here is that outsiders should not dismiss French discourse abouthumanitarian intervention as irrelevant to the actions of other powerful states[ It isclear that governments\ including the French government\ remain keen to resistimplications of a legalized international humanitarian duty[ Nevertheless\ those whowish to promote such laws\ and who wish to hold those who do not act to account\seem to have more room to manoeuvre than might be expected\ given the debacles ofinternational humanitarianism in Somalia\ former Yugoslavia and Rwanda[

AMBIGUOUS CONCEPTIONS AND THE CHALLENGE TO SOVEREIGNTY

In a public lecture on {The Evolution of Foreign Aid| delivered in 0860\ the in~uentialWest Indian economist\ W[ Arthur Lewis\ took it for granted that no policy con!ditionality could be imposed by donors\ because recipient countries would not bewilling to accept interference in their internal a}airs "Ra}er and Singer\ 0885\ p[ 044#[This seems remarkable nowadays[ Of course a certain amount of conditionality hadalways been present[ The United States and its allies regarded development assistanceas\ at least in part\ a means of discouraging the spread of communism[ Nevertheless\Lewis| assumption highlights the fact that the most remarkable shift that occurred indevelopment practice during the last decades of the 19th century was the tendency todeliberately and openly set aside sovereignty[ The shift has had several aspects\including the structural adjustment programmes of the 0879s and the emphasis on{good governance| following the ending of cold war alliances[ It has also been associ!ated with a new kind of humanitarianism\ one that has asserted a right to intervene\


Kouchner and the New Humanitarianism 716

even where that intervention might be resisted[ Arguably\ this has been the mostimportant development of all\ because it is not just that aid donors have requiredconditions from recipients\ but that states a}ected by so called {complex emergencies|have willingly or unwillingly participated in formal agreements\ which imply theacceptance of general principles[ For some\ the plethora of UN resolutions at the endof the 19th century have provided a new framework for international law\ a frameworkwhich suggests obligations\ not just for the governments of a/icted areas\ but forrich countries and multilateral organizations too[

It could be argued that such obligations have been around for some time[ In theory\since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 0837 a generallyapplicable humanitarian code has been available\ which various other conventions\such as those on genocide and on the rights of the child\ have elaborated and speci_ed[Writing in the 0879s\ Antonio Cassese could assert that]

We now have parameters for action\ available to states and individuals] theinternational rules on human rights impose modes of behaviour by requiringgovernments to act in a certain way\ and at the same time legitimize the com!plaints of individuals if those rights and freedoms are not respected "Cassese\0889\ p[ 1#

Yet\ in spite of all the assertions about {rights!based| development by a wide rangeof aid organisations "including DFID#\ the notion that humanitarian obligationsmight actually a}ect donors of assistance\ as well as its recipients\ seems to havecome as something of a surprise\ at least in the English!speaking world[ Indeed\ thefundamental contradictions and ambiguities of the idea and the practice of human!tarian intervention have often been ignored[

In what might be referred to as its {proper legal sense|\ humanitarian interventionhas traditionally been understood as]

[ [ [ referring only to coercive action taken by states\ at their initiative\ andinvolving the use of armed force\ for the purpose of preventing or putting a haltto serious and wide!scale violations of human rights\ in particular the right tolife\ inside the territory of another state "Verwey\ 0887\ p[ 079#

In this sense\ humanitarian intervention has inevitably been highly controversial inthe United Nations era\ because it relates to the tension between state sovereigntyand human rights\ both of which are safeguarded in the Charter[ It was somethingalmost entirely avoided during the Cold War period\ although it was sometimespossible for the UN to support the less problematic strategy of {enforcement actionfor humanitarian purposes| through peace!keeping operations[ However\ discussionof humanitarian intervention is by no means always limited to this legalistic usage[Even within the UN system\ it has often been used to refer to almost any kind ofinternational action\ including that by NGOs\ to provide assistance in emergencysituations[ Here it is associated primarily with the giving out of relief items\ such asfood\ and not the deployment of troops[ The confusion explains why\ for example\UN o.cials have occasionally taken pains to assert that Security Council actionsshould not be considered as humanitarian interventions\ even though several SecurityCouncil Resolutions have explicitly supported the activities of international humani!tarian organisations[ Some lawyers have been much exercised by this problem\ butmost English language commentators assume readers will have a general under!



standing of what {humanitarian| and {intervention| mean\ and discuss a wide rangeof things\ from food relief by Oxfam to peace enforcement by the US army[

A similar con~ation has occurred in France too[ But here the tensions betweenrelief aid\ human rights\ sovereignty and coercive action have been much harder toset aside[ They are in fact immediately apparent when these ideas are discussed inFrench*which\ it is worth bearing in mind\ is still the other o.cial language ofinternational relations[ In French\ the phrase used for the right to intervene is le droit

d|inè�rence[ This carries both the connotations of {a right to intervene| and {a right tointerfere|[0

Moreover\ the word droit additionally means {law|[ Thus the phrase could betranslated from French into English as {a law to interfere|[ Another phrase has alsobeen frequently used in France] le devoir d|inè�rence[ This might be translated as {aduty "or a moral obligation# to interfere:intervene|[ In English\ the idea of {a duty|carries greater weight than the idea of {a right|[1 But\ in French the emphasis is theother way around\ and the signi_cance of the use of the term le droit d|inè�rence bykey political actors has not been lost on the French public[

This fact helps explain why the French media\ French aid agencies\ and the Frenchgovernment have sometimes taken a rather di}erent view of events than counterpartsin\ for example\ the US and the UK[ It throws light too on the reasons why theFrancophone Secretary General of the UN\ Boutros Boutros Gali\ seemed to be soat odds with the US "and the UK# in the mid 0889s[ Yet\ outside of France\ theconsiderable attention that has been focused on humanitarianism in the late 19thcentury by analysts has paid little heed to the full implications of {the right to intervene|in the French language[ The _erce debates that have been waged amongst politiciansand Parisian intellectuals about humanitarianism have to a large extent been uniqueto the French milieu[

One of the numerous astounding aspects of the December 0881 American inter!vention in Somalia was the degree to which foreign policy makers\ pundits and themedia were stuck for words[ Both they and the English language lacked the vocabularyto encompass the contradictory connotations of a {humanitarian invasion|[ Inaddition\ an accumulated body of underlying policy and media debate\ normallyneeded to publicly legitimize such a military action\ was almost entirely absent[ Theclear exception to this predicament was in the French!speaking world[ On 4 December0881 most French newspapers entitled their editorials {Le Droit d|Inè�rence|[ To manyfrancophones\ the Somali intervention appeared the logical culmination of decade!long debates over intervention in the internal a}airs of sovereign states^ indeed Frenchgovernment ministers immediately proclaimed it as such\ declaring it a milestone ininternational relations[

Given such high pro_le assertions\ in many respects it is quite extraordinary howlittle recognition there has been among English language analysts of the importanceof French thinking in shaping the new humanitarian agenda[ Indeed\ Bernard Kouch!ner\ the Frenchman who claims to have invented the le droit d|inè�rence\ and whose

0 Note that Kouchner\ speaking in English\ uses the phrase {the right to interfere| in the quotes at the startof the paper[1 Douglas Hurd\ for example\ has criticized Kouchner for suggesting that there is {not simply a right\ buta duty to intervene| "Hurd\ 0886\ pp[ 127Ð128\ italic emphasis in the original#[ In fact\ Kouchner has beenmaking the point the other way around[ He takes a duty "devoir# to intervene:interfere as a given\ and hasbeen arguing for a right "droit# "see\ for example\ Kouchner\ 0880\ pp[ 146}#[



assertion is taken seriously by many in France and elsewhere\ is hardly known aboutin Britain and the US[ His in~uence has occasionally been noted and discussed inEnglish "see\ for example\ Benthall\ 0882^ Guilot\ 0883^ Fox\ 0884^ Styan\ 0885^ Allen\0888^ O|Hagan\ 0888#[ Nevertheless\ a recent book on humanitarian intervention bya group of mainly British and American scholars\ which in many respects is a verythorough survey of the topic\ makes no reference to any of Kouchner|s own pub!lications and makes only passing reference to French humanitarianism\ without notingits distinctiveness "Pieterse\ 0887#[ This is typical[ When one of the authors of thepresent paper "Tim Allen# suggested interviewing Kouchner for a radio programmein 0888\ no one in the BBC appeared to have heard of him[

It is not our contention here that Kouchner|s views can be taken at face value[ Heis a hugely controversial _gure in France\ and although he is passionately Fran!cophone and is keen to assert a leading French role in global humanitarianism\ he isoften dismissed in his own country as a maverick[ It is also obvious that the policiesof the French government\ and sometimes of French NGOs\ are open to the accusationof cynical self!interest[ They are certainly not on a higher moral plane than those ofother countries[ Nevertheless\ an understanding of how le droit d|in`e�rence emerged inFrance\ and how French NGOs and French in~uence in the UN shaped internationalresponses in the 0889s\ should be an aspect of any account of contemporary humani!tarianism[ Often it is not[

FROM BIAFRA TO GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION 32:020

Interventionist humanitarianism is not just a post Cold War phenomenon[ BothEnglish and French language analysts recognize this[ The story begins in Biafra[Although various international organizations\ notably the Red Cross movement\ havelong worked in emergency situations\ their activities have been both made possibleand constrained by agreements between states[ For the Red Cross\ this has meantthat a very strict approach has had to be taken to neutrality in war zones which\amongst other things\ has required a high degree of con_dentiality[ Until the late0859s\ other international agencies working in such areas did so together with\ orunder the auspices of\ the Red Cross\ and accepted these arrangements[ However\ inBiafra some agencies felt compelled to operate independently[

Initially food supply into the Nigerian war zone was organized by the Red Crossand UNICEF\ and supported by a range of NGOs[ An agreement had been madewith the Nigerian government to provide equal amounts of relief to both sides in thecon~ict[ But in the Spring of 0857\ the government withdrew approval for the airliftto Biafra\ as part of an attempt to force the rebels into negotiations[ In June\ Europeannewspapers and television news carried harrowing stories[ It was asserted that 2999babies were dying every day[ This placed tremendous pressure on aid agencies likeOxfam[ They found it impossible to explain why they could do nothing[ As a result\as Maggie Black puts it in her o.cial history of the organization\ Oxfam threw {itscaution to the winds [ [ [ There was a humanitarian tiger to ride and\ since its partnersin the business of compassion were holding back\ Oxfam would ride it alone| "Black\0881\ p[ 011#[

By early August 0857\ the activities of Oxfam and other NGOs that chose to followits example had forced ICRC into re!starting its airlift without Nigerian government



permission[ By the end of the war\ various aid agencies had ~own 6799 relief ~ightsinto Biafra[2 It was an extraordinary\ heroic achievement[ However it has becomewidely recognized by English language analysts that it was also {an act of unfortunateand profound folly| "Smillie\ 0884\ p[ 093# in that it prolonged the war for a year anda half and contributed towards the deaths of some 079\999 people[ Even moreimportant to Biafra than the food and drugs that were ~own in was the hard currencyprovided by the relief operations[ Millions of US dollars were exchanged into theworthless Biafran currency\ or paid to the Biafran government in the form of landingfees and other taxes[

Subsequently\ Oxfam and other aid agencies tried to avoid what they came toregard as a mistake[ But others took a di}erent view[ One such individual was BernardKouchner[ Born in 0828\ and trained as a medical doctor\ he had been active in thestudent revolution in Paris in 0857[ When the barricades came down\ he had becomea disgruntled volunteer for the Red Cross in Nigeria[ He wanted to change the world\and was profoundly shocked by his organization|s response to the situation[ In hisview\ {By keeping silent\ we doctors were accomplices in the systematic massacre of apopulation| "Benthall\ 0882\ p[ 014^ Kouchner\ 0879\ 0875\ 0880^ Kouchner andBettati\ 0876#[

He and a group of colleagues decided to break with the ICRC policy on con!_dentiality\ and to talk to journalists about what they had seen[ Later he claimed\{We were using the media before it became fashionable [ [ [ We refused to allow sickpeople and doctors to be massacred in silence and submission| "Benthall\ 0884\ p[015#[ Returning to France in 0858\ Kouchner started an International Committeeagainst Genocide in Biafra\ and he and his friends organized three independentmissions to Biafra[ Following the Nigerian government|s victory\ members of thegroups also worked among victims of the 0869 Peruvian earthquake and with Pale!stinians after the massacres by the Jordanian army[ Then\ in 0860\ they becameformally constituted under Kouchner|s leadership as a new kind of NGO\ callingthemselves Me�decins Sans Frontie�res "MSF#[

The choice of the name MSF itself indicated an intention to set aside conventionalnotions of national sovereignty\ and from its inception\ the organization was almostexclusively concerned with the quick deployment of emergency relief to populationsjudged to be in dire need\ irrespective of o.cial dictates and controls[ Instead ofalways working through formal channels\ it relied heavily on the international mediato publicize its activities\ both to secure funding\ and to provide a degree of immunityfrom the lobbying of hostile governments and other political interest groups[ It isimportant to note in this context that\ while the operations in Biafra initiated a debateabout humanitarian intervention among scholars in the English speaking world "seeLillich\ 0862#\ this was not the case in France\ partly because French practice recog!nized such intervention as technically legal "Guilot\ 0883\ p[ 20#[

Outside of France\ the in~uence of the interventionist French doctors was initiallyvery limited[ Oxfam\ Save the Children Fund and other long established agencieswere reluctant to become drawn into further Biafra!type adventures\ and emphasizedthe importance of longer!term\ grassroots development projects aimed at {empower!ing| the poor[ However\ from the early 0879s onwards\ this began to change as NGO

2 Data on the Nigerian civil war is derived from a variety of sources\ all quoted in Ian Smillie "0884\ pp[090Ð095#[



aid activity became particularly concentrated in parts of Africa and in Afghanistan[O.cial funding and private donations were most e}ectively secured when activitieswere focused on areas in which the su}ering of the population was acute and wasbeing covered by the international media[ Scores of international NGOs startedrunning top!down operations\ aiming at rapid provision of relief\ and making a virtueout of their emergency focused short!termism[ More and more NGOs competed forlucrative aid contracts wherever they were on o}er[ Indeed\ some of them wereestablished speci_cally for this purpose[ Counter!productive con~icts between inter!national NGOs have been well documented by English!speaking analysts for most ofthe main African emergencies in the 0879s\ including those in the Sahel\ Uganda\Sudan\ Ethiopia\ Somalia\ Zimbabwe and Mozambique "see\ for example\ Harrell!Bond\ 0875^ Hancock\ 0878^ Hanlon\ 0880^ Keen\ 0883^ African Rights\ 0883^ Allenand Morsink\ 0883^ Allen\ 0885\ 0888\ 1999^ de Waal\ 0886#[ In some places inter!national NGOs\ in e}ect\ took over civil administration\ and government o.cersbecame informal "and occasionally formal# employees of expatriate!run programmes[MSF in particular has been castigated for this in Mozambique\ where the welfareprogrammes of the Frelimo government were e}ectively undermined\ and replacedby an unsustainable "US funded# vertical intervention "Joe Hanlon\ taped interviewwith Tim Allen\ April 0888#[3

Mozambique was also one of the countries in which international NGOs\ eitherindividually or as consortia\ built up expertise in the 0879s at providing humanitarianaid in territories where _ghting was still going on\ operating across internationalboundaries or in rebel controlled areas without governmental consent[ This\ of course\built directly on the precedents set in Biafra\ and the e}ects were somewhat similar[The willingness of international NGOs to work in war a}ected areas helped insti!tutionalize armed con~ict\ and encouraged the emergence of local war economies\ inwhich ongoing violence became part of a way of life[ As in Biafra\ populations _ghtinginternal wars were supplied with food and other necessities\ while war!prone regimesand their local allies obtained resources from aid programmes by a range of means\from straightforward robbery to the imposition of in~ated exchange rates for foreigncurrency transactions[

Nevertheless\ a pattern for international responses to internal wars had becomewell established\ and before the Cold War came to an end\ the UN was alreadybuilding directly on the interventionist NGO approach[ By the mid 0879s\ it hadbecome generally accepted by donor countries and o.cial aid agencies that technicallyillicit programmes which were run across international borders and in rebel controlledterritory were possible by contracting the work to NGOs[ In several cases this newUN:NGO collaboration involved establishing corridors of relative peace\ from whichfood\ water and relief items might be distributed and a kind of welfare safety!netmaintained[ In 0877 these arrangements were placed on a more formal footing whenthe UN General Assembly passed Resolution 32:020[

This remarkable document rea.rmed the sovereignty of states\ but also recognizedthat the {international community makes an important contribution to the sustenanceand protection| of victims of emergency situations\ and considered that the aban!donment of victims without {humanitarian assistance [ [ [ constitutes a threat to life

3 MSF|s vertical intervention approach has also been discussed and criticised with reference to activitiesnorthern Uganda during the late 0879s "see Allen\ 0881\ 0883#[



and an o}ence to human dignity|[ It stressed the {important contribution| of {inter!governmental and non!governmental organizations working with strictly humani!tarian motives|\ and it urged states in proximity to emergency situations to facilitatethe transit of humanitarian assistance[

Here was a notion of humanitarian action in a UN document which did not seemto have anything to do with military action to prevent atrocities[ Although it was aGeneral Assembly resolution\ and therefore not technically binding on UN memberstates "unlike Security Council Resolutions#\ it was widely taken to mean that crossborder operations into war zones controlled by rebel groups were now\ in principle\formally acceptable[ This was subsequently made more explicit in General AssemblyResolution 34:099\ which praises the Secretary General for continuing consultationson the establishment of {humanitarian corridors| "Guilot\ 0883\ p[ 21#[ In the Englishlanguage literature\ both these resolutions are usually viewed as a logical developmentof the contracting arrangements between the UN and NGOs\ and an e}ort to establisha basis for more e}ective coordination[ But from a French perspective\ there wasmuch more to it than that[

KOUCHNER AND PARISIAN POLEMICS

Kouchner|s personal ambitions had grown steadily[ His most signi_cant campaign sofar had come in 0868 with the chartering of a ship\ l|Ile!de!lumie�re\ to send aid toVietnamese refugees[ The episode involved the _rst large scale example of whatKouchner himself terms {tapa`e me�diatique|\ the orchestration of a media furorearound a particular campaign\ necessarily attracting the attention of the fashionableParisian intelligentsia\ pop stars and politicians of the day[ Although the ship eventu!ally sailed\ the a}air and Kouchner|s tactics resulted not only in splitting MSF\ butalso in _ring the _rst shots in domestic French battles over the relationship betweenNGOs and media and the politicization of emergency aid "Kouchner\ 0879\ 0875\0880^ Hamon and Rotman\ 0877#[

Kouchner appeared to thrive on the polemic over the boat and promptly formedan organisation Me�decins Du Monde "MDM# with a mandate very similar to MSF[This split partially explains the excessively personal and polemical nature of much ofthe subsequent debate over French NGOs[ The other key element in understandingboth the controversy in 0868\ and the nature of subsequent debate\ is Kouchner|sunreservedly blatant manipulation of his media and political contacts[ Kouchner|sown personal links with sections of France|s political and media elite are considerable[His contacts supplement his intuitive understanding of the role of the media in politics[It is this which largely explains the degree of myth!making and image!building aroundhis own personality\ most explicitly during the Somali crisis and the tail end of theBe�re�govoy administration when he appeared*albeit brie~y*in late 0881 as the onlySocialist Party minister with any popularity[

The other\ more signi_cant dimension is his early understanding of the pro!fessionalization of NGOs and their unique relationship with the media as they becamea source for media representation of the {Third World| whilst simultaneously depend!ing on the media to raise public and political awareness at home of the issues onwhich they worked[ Thus his 0875 book {Charite� Business| perceptively analyses therelationship between the role of NGOs\ the media and government policy makers[



Whilst mostly dealing with France\ here Kouchner highlights debates of internationalsigni_cance which have been curiously lacking elsewhere "exceptions include Benthall\0882^ Allen and Seaton\ 0888#[ To understand how Kouchner and his allies were touse these attributes to promote and popularize the idea of le droit d|in`e�rence\ it isnecessary to understand the intellectual and political climate in Paris during the mid!eighties\ out of which the idea of in`e�rence arose[

In the mid!eighties Ethiopia became the focal point for a ferocious con~ict inFrance over the role of both humanitarian aid and NGOs[ Although the de_nition ofwhat constituted humanitarian aid\ and whether it was morally acceptable to co!operate with Ethiopia|s Marxist government\ was the focus of the debate\ it wasconducted in the broader context about French post!colonial attitudes towards the{Third World| in general and Africa in particular[ Ethiopia appears an improbablecatalyst in France\ but it was signi_cant for two reasons[ Firstly Ethiopia appearedto epitomise the worst excesses of Stalinist orthodoxy in Africa[ Secondly it lay outsidethe established French sphere of in~uence in Africa\ and therefore the debate couldproceed largely unhampered by the practical exigencies of French policy making[

In December 0874 a team of doctors working for Me�decins Sans Frontie�res wasexpelled from Ethiopia\ ostensibly for having publicly denounced the programme ofresettlement[ The incident itself is not relevant to our current argument\ although itbrought MSF abruptly to the attention of other European and North AmericanNGOs "for a view of how MSF|s decision was perceived\ see Jansson et al[ "0876\ p[13##[ What is important is that the expulsion became the catalyst for MSF|s role inthe campaign against aid to the regime in Ethiopia[ This in turn became enmeshed ina far wider crusade against what was denounced in Paris as tiersmondisme\ "{third!worldism|# which had been brewing for some time[ The term {third!worldism| meanslittle in English[ Whilst a couple of works have used the term with connotationsrelated to the French usage\ it is hardly a term of intellectual abuse "Toye\ 0876^Harris\ 0875#[ But in France in the eighties this became its primary use\ as a pejorativelabel used by some writers to pigeonhole their detractors within French intellectualdebate[

Tiersmondisme has been de_ned as {an attempt to rescue Marxist theory with thehelp of Rousseau|s clearly anti!Marxist concept of the {{noble savage|| | "Guilot\ 0883\p[ 23#[ It had emerged in France in the wake of the war in Algeria\ the students|revolt of May 0857\ and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia[ Disillusioned withconventional Marxist socialism\ and impressed by the achievements of anti!colonialmovements\ the {Third World| was seen as comprising the {international proletariat|[One result of this shift was an increased concern in France with world poverty\ andthe emergence of secular aid agencies\ including MSF[ However\ over time a divisionemerged between\ on the one hand\ groups and individuals espousing "or accused ofespousing# the original anti!colonialist position or simplistic ideas of Christian charityand\ on the other\ those who {discovered| human rights| and who wanted to promotea mission civilisatrice[ MSF and the {without borders| movement as a whole\ wereassociated with the latter camp[

In 0872 Pascal Bruckner\ an author with little experience of foreign a}airs\ pub!lished a book entitled Le San`lot de l|Homme Blanc[ This denounced the tyranny oftiersmondisme\ described as an ill!founded sense of guilt based on self!hate inculcatedthrough a colonial heritage^ a hangover from colonialism which\ according to Bruck!ner\ continued to haunt Europeans[ Mixed with a potent cocktail of Marxism and



misguided Christianity\ he claimed this had dominated and distorted not only France|spost!colonial vision of the {Third World|\ but also its policies of aid and solidaritytowards former colonies "Bruckner\ 0872#[ Similar ideas were then re!packaged byLiberte�s Sans Frontie�res\ an o}!shoot of MSF\ in a conference entitled {Third!World!ism in Question| in January 0875[ The conference was well publicized\ generatingsigni_cant media attention in France and subsequently a book edited by MSF|s head"Brauman\ 0875#[

Whilst the rest of the Western world came to terms with the 0873Ð74 Ethiopianfamine and subsequent aid e}ort\ French activists and intellectuals became engagedin a vitriolic debate[ Apparently it was about the morals of aiding a Marxist govern!ment with no respect for human rights\ but it frequently seemed to be calling intoquestion any manifestation of {Third World| solidarity by French NGOs[ Whilstostensibly about Ethiopia\ in reality the arguments had much more to do with shiftingFrench attitudes to Marxism\ most particularly the Marxism espoused by {ThirdWorld| governments[ The height of this campaign came with further Paris conferenceson Ethiopia and the publication of Silence On Tue\ perhaps best described as arant against the Ethiopian regime\ Bob Geldof\ and African socialism in general"Glucksmann and Wolton\ 0875#[

Out of such polemics emerged the view that aid should be refused to governmentscommitting human rights abuses\ here citing Ethiopia|s forcible resettlement of popu!lations[ From this it was a relatively short step to arguing that further sanctions mightbe applied\ even when this might override the principle of state sovereignty[ Asmentioned above\ actions by international organisations of the kind that had occurredin Biafra were not necessarily regarded as illegal\ according to French practice ofinternational law[ Now the idea gained currency that the "already existing# legal basisfor in`e�rence should be more actively developed\ not just in France\ but in the wider{international community|[ The debate also gave rise to more nuanced work on theproblems of NGOs operating in situations of civil war "Ru.n\ 0875^ Condamines\0876#[

Given the fury with which they were denounced\ foreigners may well ask who thesemisguided tiersmondiste souls were who had supposedly dominated French thoughtfor so long\ with ostensibly such dire results for French policy[ Do\ or did they everexist< Whilst clearly identi_able tiersmondiste currents of thought did exist in thesixties and seventies\ the debate of the mid!eighties must be seen largely as theretrospective reconstruction of a straw doll for some writers to better prove their anti!Marxist credentials[ Rose!tinted French images of\ and solidarity with\ {Third World|states professing socialism had already been extensively criticised by many formeractivists[ As far back as 0867 numerous self!critiques had charted French intellectuals|disillusionment with the {Third World| alternatives they had earlier championed"Burguiere\ 0867^ Challiand\ 0867#[ It is true that there was a speci_c perception insome sections of the French left of the revolutionary potential of {Third World|struggles "much of it based on the Algerian experience#\ but by the late seventies\most analysts had shed starry!eyed idealism[ Nevertheless\ it should be stressed thatthe numerous defences and rede_nitions which the anti!tiersmondiste attacks pro!voked during the eighties in both the NGO and academic communities does suggestthat the critics did in part hit their targets\ lancing the latent simplicity of left!wingattitudes to the {Third World|\ prompting the writing of more critical histories ofFrench attitudes to the {Third World| "Lacoste\ 0874^ Liazu\ 0876#[



How were the above debates linked to the evolution of the idea of le droit d|in`!

e�rence<*principally through the timing of the debates\ the small cast of individualsinvolved "largely drawn from the milieu of Parisian intelligentsia# and their focus onissues of individual human rights above the rights of states[ Bernard Kouchner himselfwas not an energetic partisan in the MSF debate over Ethiopia\ in part due to personalenmities with MSF head Brauman and with Claude Malhuret\ Chirac|s Minister ofHuman Rights between 0875 and 0877[4 Kouchner publicly distanced himself fromthe polemic\ declaring there were {no good and bad deaths|\ implying in the variousconferences on the issue the ideological orientation of the government wasn|t relevant[However\ he was at this time working on the more ambitious project to promote thenotion of le droit d|inè�rence[

This was formally launched at a MDM conference on {humanitarian law andmorals| in Paris in January 0876 "Kouchner and Bettati\ 0876#[ In the light of sub!sequent claims made for it\ the intentions of the 0876 meeting appear modest\ beingrestricted largely to ensuring access to emergency health care for peoples in distress\essentially medical health care as provided by MSF and MDM[ Mitterrand endorsedthe need for {defence of human rights in the {{Third World|| | and cohabitation obliè[The then Prime Minister\ Jacques Chirac also called for additional assistance forhumanitarian organizations "Liberation 16 and 18 January 0876#[

Nevertheless\ for Kouchner this seems to have marked the formal launching of hiscampaign to establish a {humanitarian law|\ with heavyweight political backing[ Hewanted to make humanitarian action more than a duty or moral obligation "devoir#\and to turn it into a legal right "droit#[ With the anniversary of the Declaration theRights of Man approaching\ such an idea resonated with French national identity[5

He was no doubt also mindful of the impending 0877 elections\ and the possibility ofdisplacing his rival\ Malhuret[ In the event he became minister both of health andaction humanitaire in the new government\ the latter being a post created especiallyfor him[ He immediately set about trying to extend his in~uence outside of France\through the United Nations[ According to him\ General Assembly Resolutions 32:020and 34:099 were the direct result[ As he puts it] {I was not only in~uential[ I waswriting it[ They were my people\ coming from my cabinet and myself| "Kouchner\taped interview with Tim Allen\ April 0888#[ He argues that this set the frameworkfor what followed in the 0889s[ By establishing the principle of humanitarian assistanceacross borders\ it was possible to broaden the legal notion of humanitarian inter!vention to military interference\ not just to prevent atrocities like genocide\ but alsoto provide relief[

It is important to stress that Kouchner|s activities provoked considerable uneaseamongst some activists in the French NGO sector[ Rony Brauman\ who had becomechairman of MSF!France in 0871\ was highly critical of Kouchner|s position[ Hepointed out that international jurisprudence is a _ckle and slippery term to be usedby states when convenient[ Whilst plausible on paper\ the practical implementationof le droit d|inè�rence runs counter to the original intentions of it being a device to

4 Claude Malhuret was also an ex!president of MSF[ The intertwined personal and institutional con~ictsaround MSF are deep and complex\ notably between Malhuret\ Kouchner and Rony Brauman\ who haswritten extensively on the matter "Brauman\ 0884#[5 The idea of French nationalism is often linked to the French {invention| of human rights in 0678[ It isalso worth noting that it was a Frenchman\ A[ Rougier\ who\ in 0809\ _rst de_ned humanitarian intervention"Guilot\ 0883\ p[ 30#[



allow NGOs access to victims[ A humanitarian invasion inevitably mixes military andhumanitarian aims\ and the promotion of inè�rence by governments irrevocablyconfuses those two aims\ thus corrupting its original intent "Brauman\ 0880#[ Similarpoints were made by MSF sta} interviewed in Paris in 0888[ As Francois Jean\Director of Research at the MSF Foundation\ put it]

We were against this principle "le droit d|inè�rence# because we felt that it wasmainly the right for a strong state to intervene in weak states [ [ [ We questionedthe purity of intention of any state undertaking so called humanitarian inter!ventions "taped interview with Tim Allen\ April 0888#[

INGEłRENCE IN PRACTICE

The fundamental questioning of state motivation by Brauman and Jean probablyre~ects a degree of personal animosity\ particularly between the former and Kouchner[But state interference in various parts of the world was\ of course\ nothing new inFrance\ and was a focus of understandable cynicism[ In this respect there is an ironyin the Parisian roots and elaboration of the idea of inè�rence in that French foreignpolicy\ most particularly towards its former colonies\ was itself rooted in a verydi}erent\ but systematic form of intervention[ France|s former sub!Saharan Africancolonies\ and francophone states formerly under Belgian rule "Zaire\ Rwanda andBurundi# were tied to France by a series of defence accords\ while France maintaineda string of major military bases in the continent stretching from Senegal to Djibouti[Throughout the 0879s\ French policy in Africa remained little changed[ As alreadynoted\ it was not coincidental that the inè�rence debate was initially focused onEthiopia\ and not countries with substantial French military and economic interests[For this reason\ there appeared to be little linkage between the intellectual polemicsover interventionism in Paris and the actual practice of French policy in the continent[It was only in the mid to late 0889s that critical voices were raised publicly over thecorrupt and stagnant nature of French policy towards Africa[

However\ one should be careful of denying any linkage between such debates andpolicy[ Notable was the way in which the loose taint of being too {tiersmondiste| wasused to discredit e}orts by some in the _rst post!0870 Socialist administration\ mostparticularly the minister of coope�ration\ Jean!Pierre Cot\ to set a new direction forFrance|s African policy[ Cot resigned in December 0871 and President Mitterand\partly via his son\ Jean!Christophe\ reasserted Gaullist direct links with Africanleaders[ It has been argued that the disarray in the government ranks over policytowards established African clients such as Chad and Central African Republicduring 0871 re~ected a deeper intellectual poverty\ lack of focus and unpreparednessin Socialist Party thinking on Africa "Bayart\ 0873^ Cot\ 0873#[ Indeed\ despiteMitterand|s speech at La Baule in 0889 "ostensibly linking French assistance to Africato democratization#\ it was to be another decade\ and only after the Rwandan genocideof 0883Ð84\ before the reformist tendency which Cot represented began to gain theupper!hand^ ironically under a right!wing administration[

But obviously the debate over intervention and inè�rence has relevance to a widercontext than simply France|s relations with Africa[ If Kouchner|s claims to have beenresponsible for General Assembly Resolution 32:020 may be overblown\ there is no



denying his considerable role[ In the English language literature it is generally arguedthat the humanitarian intervention in Iraq with military support was a consequenceof critical news media coverage\ the availability of UN a.liated troops in the regionin the aftermath of the 0880 Gulf war\ concerns about in~uxes of refugees into Europe\and the precedents which had already been set for establishing {zones of tranquility|in war zones by the UN in Africa "for example in southern Sudan# "Allen\ 0888\ pp[080Ð084#[ However the wording of Security Council Resolution 577 seems to suggestFrench connotations of {the right to intervene|\ which Kouchner probably in~uencedthrough the French ambassador to the council\ and of which he certainly approved[The Resolution insisted that {Iraq allow immediate access to international humani!tarian organisations to all those in need of assistance in all parts of Iraq|[

We also should not overlook Kouchner|s personal charisma[ He was a possiblecandidate for the position of UN High Commissioner for Refugees[ Although the jobeventually went to Sadako Ogata "allegedly because the Japanese o}ered to providea larger proportion of the organisation|s budget than the French#\ the controversial{preventive protection| policies adopted by UNHCR in the early 0889s surely re~ecthis ideas[ Indeed\ Sadako Ogata has mentioned to one of the authors of this paperthat she discussed issues with him at the time "interview with Tim Allen\ May 0888#[6

By the time of the Somalia operation in 0881\ both the media pro_le and politicalstanding of Kouchner in France\ now minister of health and humanitarian action\were higher than ever\ boosted notably by his campaigning over Bosnia and trip withMitterrand to Sarajevo in June 0881[ Somalia\ like Ethiopia\ was relatively distant"in geographic and political terms# from the vested interests that the ministries offoreign a}airs\ coope�ration and defence had in Francophone African states[ As mediaattention over the plight of the Somalis increased during the summer\ Kouchner andhis lobby within the French state apparatus were vocal in arguing that militaryintervention was necessary[ The lobby was given considerable public and mediasupport via a campaign whereby every French schoolchild was asked to donate ricefor Somalia[

Although from a logistical and nutritional point of view the campaign made littlesense\ its symbolism and psychological impact on the French public eager to {dosomething and help| was formidable[ It also underlined the animosity with whichmost ministries viewed Kouchner|s antics[ Defence\ foreign a}airs and coope�rationall attempted to steer clear of having anything to do with Kouchner|s rice[ Despitehis pleading\ France pointedly declined Boutros Ghali|s call for military assistancefor Somalia on 06 November 0881[ Defence Minister Pierre Joxe publicly denouncedKouchner|s public pleas for French military intervention\ pointedly stressing {thereare many other cases\ for example Liberia or Sudan\ where a military interventionwould be equally valid| "Le Monde\ 0 December 0881^ Joxe in Le Point\ 01 December0881#[ However\ once the Security Council passed resolution 683 authorising foreignmilitary intervention in Somalia on 3 December 0881\ the French position changed[Not only were 0699 French troops immediately committed to the operation\ but itwas hailed by many in France as a crucial milestone in establishing le droit d|in`e�rence[

On 3 December President Mitterand talked of the {historic proportions| of thedecision to embark on {an operation of in`e�rence humanitaire clearly under the

6 The British Foreign Secretary in the early 0889s\ Douglas Hurd\ has also noted Kouchner|s in~uence onOgata "see Hurd\ 0886\ p[ 128#[



guarantee of the United Nations\ "which is# a totally new phenomena in internationallaw|[ France|s representative at the UN claimed {this commitment _ts with the prin!cipal of the law of humanitarian urgency for which France has so often called|[ ForKouchner\ resolution 683 represented {a fantastic step forward\ a new legal base forthe international law of inè�rence| "Le Monde\ 4 and 5Ð6 December 0881\ see also {Le

droit d|inè�rence|\ Le Fiàro 4Ð5 December 0881\ and {L|an 0 du droit d|inè�rence|\Libe�ration\ 3 December 0881#[

This self!congratulation paid little heed to the obvious point that it was outgoing USPresident Bush who triggered the operation and that US troops made up the bulk ofthe {UN| force[ Whilst in the US and elsewhere in Europe the uniqueness of theoperation was acknowledged\ only in France was the decision seen as marking awatershed in international relations[ It appeared a decisive battle in Kouchner|s longcrusade\ although the military and humanitarian ambiguities of inè�rence were neatlyhighlighted as Kouchner splashed around for French cameras with his rice\ whilst afew miles down the same Somali beach US marines prepared to invade^ as Libe�ration

put it\ in its own inimitable style {L|humanitaire s|en va!t!en ùerre| "4 December 0881#[Outside of France\ the Somalia adventure is usually depicted as an almost unmiti!

gated disaster for the new humanitarianism[ But in France again things are a littledi}erent[ Certainly there is an acceptance that errors were made[ One analyst referredto Somalie] le ùerre perdue de l|humanitaire "Smith\ 0882#\ and Kouchner|s successoras Minister for Humanitarian Action\ Lucette Michaux!Chevry\ was highly criticalof his paternalism[ Nevertheless\ the principle of interference is often understood tohave survived intact[ When interviewed in 0888\ Kouchner passionately reiterated hisvision[ For him\ Somalia remains a great achievement\ a benchmark for inè�rence[He vehemently rejects assertions that it was a catastrophe for humanitarianism]

There are no humanitarian catastrophes\ only political catastrophes [ [ [ No;What was catastrophic "in Somalia# was the American attitude [ [ [ A war withoutprisoners\ a war without dead people*this is just crazy[ Unfortunately a fewcourageous people were killed in Mogadishu[ I am sorry for them[ But none ofmy people\ none of the French legionnaires had problems [ [ [ So Somalia was abig success [ [ [ After this intervention babies were not dying[ So it was a success[We were not supposed to stop the _ghting between the war lords[ The schoolswere opened\ the crops were grown and the roads were repaired [ [ [ They are still_ghting\ of course yes[ But we were not in charge[ Other examples are better\because we are getting better[ Albania "for example# was a tremendous successfor interference [ [ [ "taped interview with Tim Allen in English\ April 0888#

Whilst Somalia was outside the traditional French sphere of in~uence in Africa\ thusgiving the Minister of Humanitarian Action greater leeway within the French policyapparatus\ this very clearly was not the case in Rwanda[ Rwanda\ a francophonecountry in which French troops had been stationed since 0889\ presented a verydi}erent con_guration of French policy interests[ It therefore illustrates far moresharply the inherent contradictions of the idea of humanitarian intervention in Francewith long!standing French foreign policy objectives[ Kouchner accepts that eventsthere in 0883 were appalling[ But he maintains that one of its legacies has been tostrengthen\ not weaken the case for inè�rence[ When reminded that in 0880\ the yearof MSF|s twentieth anniversary\ he had asserted that the era of genocide was over\he responded]



It was not true[ It was a mistake [ [ [ But we did not interfere unfortunately[Nineteen countries were supposed to answer yes to Boutro Ghali|s call [ [ [ Allrefused[ That|s the reason[ Afterwards they came\ and I was there[ We tried andwe succeeded in saving a lot of children [ [ [ It was not enough [ [ [ "taped interviewwith Tim Allen\ April 0888#

Kouchner is here referring to France|s {ope�ration turquoise|\ which began in Rwandaon 12 June 0883[ It took place under Security Council Resolution 818\ agreed just theprevious evening[ This resolution was solely a French initiative\7 as was "if we discountthe French trained and armed Senegalese# the subsequent military intervention[ Yetonce again it was legitimized in France with slogans of humanitarian aims and le droit

d|inè�rence[

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

These issues remain a focus of heated debate in France[ MSF\ partly through itsnetwork of o.ces in other countries\ has become more engaged with the Englishlanguage discussion of humanitarianism[ It has taken on board criticisms that havebeen made of its programmes\ and has been particularly disturbed by the evidence ofrelief activities reinforcing war economies[ A report in 0886 even went so far as tostate that the Biafra intervention was a {salutary mistake| "MSF\ 0886\ p[ 1\ xxi#[

But Kouchner remains de_ant\ and still has a large following[ When interviewed inParis at the time of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia\ he was again Minister ofHealth in the French government[ He had little time for the antipathy to le droit

d|inè�rence expressed by MSF\ or the suggestion that the Biafra had been an error[He asserted that they were just {bull!shitting people|\ because {only the victims cansay such a thing|[ For Kouchner it is just stupid not to establish principles whichpropel states towards humanitarian action\ or to suggest that sovereignty should beprotected when humanitarian violations are occurring]

I invented MSF to go where the others were not able to go[ And believe me\ ifMSF is not going\ some new and young organization will go\ and take the relief[It is always like that[ They are old people in their mind "taped interview withTim Allen\ April 0888#

To the argument that access to war zones requires negotiation with warring factions\and thereby reinforces the very structures causing the violence\ he replied robustly]

Of course yes[ Don|t be childish[ If you are just negotiating enough to save somepeople [ [ [ God looks at you [ [ [ You do not reinforce anything with two bags ofrice[ It is not a problem[ Of course it|s better to go straight and not to giveanything to the enemy\ but you have no enemy[ If you are humanitarian [ [ [ thisis not politics\ you must be neutral\ taking care of all[ Giving the least possibleto the check points [ [ [ "taped interview with Tim Allen\ April 0888#

But he also accepted that le droit d|inè�rence implies a very di}erent kind of approach\

7 Counter to UN practice\ the French proposal\ which led to 818\ was not seconded by another state[ Fivemembers of the Security Council abstained from the vote] Brazil\ China\ Nigeria\ New Zealand andPakistan[



one that usually involves taking sides and perhaps killing people[ He argues thatGeneral Assembly Resolution 32:020 and the hundreds of Security Council Res!olutions of the 0889s provide a framework for such actions\ and must be employed{to change the world|[ For Kouchner\ this is the real {new humanitarianism|\ a dutyto intervene backed up by what he regards to be new "or at least more explicit#international law[ This does not necessarily require neutrality in the sense of helpingwithout judging\ but it does imply imposing certain norms of behaviour everywhere[

On the situation in Kosovo he made the following observations]

I was talking to my Prime Minister today\ and I said that the situation in Kosovois the same as the situation of the Kurdish people at the Turkish border after thebombing in Iraq\ when we wrote the 577 "Security Council# Resolution [ [ [ I|mgoing to try to get the same resolution now to protect the people in Kosovo[ [ [ We should send in ground troops [ [ [ Unfortunately some very mistakenintellectuals have fought against the right to interfere\ because*I don|t knowwhy*because they were manipulated by those people from MSF [ [ [ they madea very\ very dirty\ dirty job "taped interview with Tim Allen\ April 0888#

Three months later he was appointed as head of the UN Interim AdministrationMission in Kosovo "having been chosen in preference to the former UK LiberalDemocrat leader\ Paddy Ashdown#[ At the time he was referred to in the Britishmedia as {the French candidate|[ The implication seemed to be that he was some sortof faceless bureaucrat[ Whatever else one might say about him\ he certainly is notthat;

According to Kouchner\ the institutionalization of the idea of in`e�rence during the0889s has far reaching implications[ Certainly it has not gone away[ Indeed\ assertionsby the Blair government about the {humanitarian bombing| in 0888 being a mani!festation of {ethical foreign policy|\ sounded like an attempt to Anglicize the concept[In March 1999\ Kouchner addressed the Security Council\ using typically vehementlanguage and\ also typically\ releasing his statements to the press[ He asserted that itwas {unacceptable| for the UN Mission to Kosovo to have to beg for funds that hadalready been pledged "www[un[org:peace:kosovo:pages:kosovo4[htm#[ It is not thesort of thing that has traditionally been said in such meetings\ or at least not o.ciallyreported to have been said[

In theory at least\ humanitarian action may now be required\ and failure to actmay be an o}ence\ or at least liable to o.cial censure[ It is perhaps signi_cant thatthe recently published report of the independent inquiry into the actions of the UnitedNations during the 0883 genocide in Rwanda names those who were responsible fornot taking adequate preventive action\ including the current UN Secretary General\Ko_ Annan[ A prosecution is currently under way in the US courts in which Rwan!dans are arguing that the UN Security Council had been duty!bound to intervene in0883\ and that the abrogation of responsibility\ which everyone now accepts occurred\is legally culpable[

As ever\ Kouchner has no hesitation in ascribing his views to the organisation herepresents*something that often drove colleagues at MSF\ MDM and in the Frenchgovernment to a state of total apoplexy[ In his new role he made the followingstatements at a speech in Pristina in October 0888\ following the murder of one of hissta}]



That people are still murdered for their ethnicity\ language\ religion\ culture orother a.liation here and around the world is disgusting and will not be toleratedby the United Nations and should not be tolerated by any citizen of the world[ [ [ His "Valentine Krumov|s# sacri_ce for our common dreams and goals was anoble cause*a higher calling that we of the United Nations commit to each daywe arrive at work[ We will continue to struggle[ We will continue to implementthe goals of the United Nations without trepidation and fear from evil forceswho seek repression and persecution [ [ [ "www[un[org:peace:kosovo:pages:krumov[htm#

For Kouchner\ the idealism of the student revolt in Paris has not dimmed with thepassing of the years[ This child of |57 still thinks that everything is possible[ His brandof politics seems larger than life or just foolish to many Anglophones[ The formerBritish Foreign Secretary\ Douglas Hurd\ who had to deal with him in the early 0889s\patronisingly dismisses him in his book on peace!keeping as Mitterrand|s {hyperactiveAid minister| "Hurd\ 0886\ p[ 127#[ But\ it is surely a mistake to underestimate hisimpact[ Clearly something extraordinary has happened to international humani!tarianism[ {Warts and all|\ this has been partly a product of Bernard Kouchner|sinspiration[

REFERENCES

African Rights[ 0883[ Humanitarianism Unbound< African Rights\ London[

Allen T[ 0881[ Upheaval\ a/iction and health] a Ugandan case study[ In Rural Livelihoods]

Crises and Responses\ Bernstein H\ Crow B\ Johnson H "eds#[ Oxford University Press]

Oxford[

Allen T[ 0883[ Closed minds\ open systems] a/iction and healing in West Nole\ Uganda[ In A

River of Blessin`s] Essays in Honor of Paul Baxter\ Brokensha D "ed#[ Maxwell School

African Series 33\ Syracuse University\ New York[

Allen T "ed#[ 0885[ In Search of Cool Ground] War\ Fli`ht and Homecomin` in Northeast Africa[

James Currey] London[

Allen T[ 0888[ War genocide and aid[ Socioloùs\ Supplement 0] The Dynamics of Violence[

Duncker + Humblot] Berlin[

Allen T[ 1999[ A world at war[ In Poverty and Development into the 10st Century\ Allen T\

Thomas A "eds#[ Oxford University Press] Oxford[

Allen T\ Morsink H "eds#[ 0883[ When Refuèes Go Home] African Experiences[ James Currey]

London[

Allen T\ Seaton J "eds# 0888[ The Media of Con~ict] War Reportin` and Representations of

Ethnic Violence[ Zed Press] London[

Bayart J!F[ 0873[ La Politique Africaine De Mitterrand[ Karthala] Paris[

Benthall J[ 0882[ Disasters\ Relief and the Media[ IB Taurus] London[

Black M[ 0881[ A Cause for our Time] Oxfam\ The First 49 Years[ Oxfam] Oxford[

Brauman R "ed#[ 0875[ Le Tiersmondisme En Question[ O[ Orban] Paris[

Brauman R[ 0880[ Contre L|Humanitarianisme[ L|Esprit "Paris# 066] 66Ð74[

Brauman R[ 0884[ We can|t say we didn|t know[ In Populations in Danèr 0884[ Me�decins Sans

Frontie�res[ Paris[

Bruckner P "ed#[ 0872[ Le San`lot de l|Homme Blanc] Tiers!monde\ Culpabilite�\ Haine de Soi[

Editions du Seuil] Paris[



Burguiere A[ 0867[ Le Tiers Monde et la Gauche[ Le Seuil] Paris[

Cassese A[ 0889[ Human Ri`hts in a Chanìn` World[ Polity Press] Cambridge[

Chaliland G[ 0867[ Mythes et Revolutionnes Tiersmondiste[ Le Seuil] Paris[

Condamines C[ 0876[ L|Ethiopie[ Le Monde Diplomatique\ Jan[

Cot J!P[ 0873[ A L|Ełpreuve Du Pouvoir[ Seuil] Paris[

De Waal A[ 0886[ Famine Crimes[ James Currey] Oxford[

Forbes I\ Ho}man M[ 0882[ Political Theory\ International Relations and the Ethics of Inter!

vention[ Macmillan] London[

Fox R[ 0884[ Medical humanitarianism and human rights] re~ections on doctors without

borders and doctors of the world[ Social Science and Medicine 30"01#] 0596Ð0515[

Glucksmann A\ Wolton T[ 0875[ Silence on Tue[ Grasset] Paris[

Guilot P[ 0883[ France\ peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention[ International Pea!

cekeepin` 0"0#[

Hamon H\ Rotman P[ 0876[ La Ge�ne�ration\ vol[ 0[ Le Seuil] Paris[

Harris N[ 0875[ The End of the Third World[ Penguin] London[

Harrell!Bond B[ 0875[ Imposin` Aid[ Oxford University Press] Oxford[

Hanlon J[ 0880[ Mozambique] Who Calls the Shots< James Currey] London[

Hancock G[ 0878[ The Lords of Poverty[ Macmillan] London[

Hurd D[ 0886[ The Search for Peace[ Little\ Brown and Company] London[

Jannsson K\ Harris M\ Penrose A[ 0876[ The Ethiopian Famine[ Zed] London[

Keen D[ 0883[ The Bene_ts of Famine[ Princeton University Press] Princeton[

Kouchner B[ 0879[ L|Ile!de!Lumie�re[ Ramsay] Paris[

Kouchner B[ 0875[ Charite� Business[ Le Pre� Aux Clercs!Belfond] Paris[

Kouchner B[ 0880[ Le Malheur des Autres[ Odile Jacob] Paris[

Kouchner B\ Bettati M[ 0876[ Le Devoir d|inè�rence^ Peut!On les Laisser Mourir< Denoe�l]

Paris[

Lacoste Y[ 0874[ Contre Les Anti!Tiersmondistes^ Et Contre Certains Tiersmondistes[ Le Deco!

uverte] Paris[

Liazu C[ 0876[ L|enjeu Tiersmondiste[ L|Harmattan] Paris[

Lillich L "ed#[ 0862[ Humanitarian Intervention and the United Nations[ University Press of

Virginia] Charlotteville[

MSF[ 0886[ World in Crisis] the Politics of Survival at the End of the 19th Century[ Routledge]

London[

O|Hagan L[ 0888[ Whose humanitarianism<] Some non military alternatives< Unpublished

paper to BISA conference\ Manchester\ 0888[

Pieterse JN[ 0887[ World Orders in the Makin`] Humanitarian Intervention and Beyond[ Mac!

millan] Basingstoke[

Ra}er K\ Singer HW[ 0885[ The Forei`n Aid Business[ Edward Elgar] Cheltenham[

Ru.n J!C[ 0875[ Le Pie�è^ Quand L|aide Humanitaire Replace La Guerre[ JC Latte�s] Paris[

Smillie I[ 0884[ The Alms Bazaar[ IT Publications] London[

Smith S[ 0882[ Somalie] la ùerre perdue de l|humanitaire[ Calmann!Levy] Paris[

Styan D[ 0885[ The Origins of Le Droit D|inè�rence And Its Contradictory Relationship with

French African Policy^ Bordeaux:GRAF\ mimeo\ 0885[

Toye J[ 0882[ Dilemmas of Development "1nd edn#[ Blackwell] Oxford[

Verwey WD[ 0887[ Humanitarian intervention in the 0889s and beyond] an international law

perspective[ In World Orders in the Makin`\ Pieterse JN "ed#[ Macmillan] Basingstoke[

Whitaker B[ 0872[ A Bridè of People^ Oxfam|s First 39 Years[ Heinneman] London[

a right to interfere new humanitarianism

Documents

lc aroii aingc

di erent view

english language analysts

19th century

hllcn ana

french ngos

speaking world

human rights