Confronting Governments? Michel Foucault and the Right to Intervene | Jessica Whyte

Summary: In 1981, Michel Foucault delivered the statement “Confronting Governments: Human Rights” at the UN in Geneva. Addressing “all members of the community of the governed”, he argued that the “suffering of men”, too often ignored by Governments, “grounds an absolute right to intervene”. In this period, he worked closely with Bernard Kouchner (then head of Médecins san Frontieres/Médecins du Monde, and, until recently, France’s Foreign Minister) who is credited with playing a central role in the development of the norm of humanitarian intervention. This paper will trace the mutual influences between what Foucault termed “the right of the governed”, and the new generation of activist humanitarian NGO’s that originated in the wake of the 1968 Biafra conflict with the founding of Médecins san Frontieres.