An admired humanitarian, the French politician and doctor Bernard Kouchner has spent much of his career as an advocate of humanitarian intervention and is one of the co-founders of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organisation Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders.

Having enjoyed a varied career in both medicine and politics, Kouchner served as the Minister of Health and Humanitarian Action in 1988 and Foreign Minister in 1992. He later became a member of the European Parliament in 1994 and served as the Chairman of Development and Co-operation. As a trained doctor and alongside Doctors Without Borders Kouchner has organised numerous humanitarian operations in countries including Cambodia, El Salvador and Somalia. Following his many interventions, Kouchner went on to establish Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World).

Having always felt deeply compelled throughout his career to helping others Kouchner is renowned for being outspoken and was among the very few politicians to be openly in favour of the US-led military intervention in Iraq. Kouchner has gone on to receive a number of awards for his humanitarian work, including the 1979 Dag Hammarskjöld prize, the 1981 Athinai prize from the Alexander Onassis Foundation and the 1984 Prix Europa. Since leaving politics Kouchner has gone on to hold various influential positions including a member of the board of trustees at the American University of Kurdistan and the European Council on Foreign Relations. He has also written extensively on his humanitarian work in articles, books and screenplays.