Bernard Kouchner

As Founder and first President of Doctors Without Borders (Medicins sans frontieres -- MSF), Dr. Bernard Kouchner has led medical relief teams into the worst disaster areas and bloodiest war zones of our times, often defying ruthless armed combatants, to offer aid to the suffering victims without regard to their politics. Affirming Kouchner's dictum that "mankind's suffering belongs to all men," MSF enters disaster zones with or without the permission of the government in place, and exposes human rights abuses wherever it finds them. Dr. Kouchner himself has led relief teams into Cambodia, Thailand, El Salvador and Rwanda, and undertook several covert aid missions to Afghanistan during the long conflict there. Dr. Kouchner has served as a Minister of State in successive French governments, including terms as Minister of Health and Humanitarian Aid, and has also served as a Member of the European Parliament. He has long argued that liberal democracies have a duty to defend human rights, even if it compels them to override the sovereignty of other states. NATO invoked this doctrine in 1999 to justify intervention in the Kosovo crisis, and the UN appointed Kouchner to head its mission there. Doctors Without Borders was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. Since 2007, Bernard Kouchner has served as France's Minister of Foreign Afairs.