Contract of Mutual (In)Difference: Governance and the Humanitarian Apparatus in Contemporary Albania and Kosovo

Abstract

In his book Le malheur des autres, Bernard Kouchner, the founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres and the former French Health Minister, wrote that “[h]umanitarian activities have become customary.” Kouchner’s statement points to the new forms of globally organized power and expertise, located within new transnational regimes, humanitarian networks, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and multiand bilateral organizations that are now developing. These new transnational regimes, parallel to local forms of rule, constitute a mobile apparatus which I have defined as migrant sovereignties. With the explosive growth of NGOs of all scales and varieties that has occurred since 1945, we are witnessing a massive transformation in the nature of global governance. Such growth has been fueled by the connected development of the U.N. system, and, more particularly, by the increasing global circulation and legitimization of discourse and politics of “human rights.” Resolutions adopted by the U.N. Security Council and various international agencies and meetings show that new forms of sovereignty have come into place alongside older, territorialized forms. These new forms legitimize the right of interference and intervention, identifying a deterritorialized sovereignty that migrates around the globe to sites of “crisis” and humanitarian disaster.