All societies inevitably generate their quota of victims—their excluded populations—groups with no share in society, who are doomed to a violent death or to be deprived of things that are essential to their survival (water, food, shelter and medical care).

There is, however, a space for negotiation, power games and interest-seeking between aid actors and authorities. MSF’s freedom of action is not rooted in a legal and moral “space of sovereignty” that simply needs to be proclaimed in order to be automatically acknowledged and respected. It is the product of repeated transactions with local and

If, by its actions in a given context, MSF cannot hope “to reduce the number of deaths, the suffering and the frequency of incapacitating handicaps within groups of people who are usually poorly served by public health systems”,13 then the compromises it agrees to are neither justifiable nor acceptable.

“that blurry, but very real, line beyond which assistance for victims imperceptibly turns into support for their tormenters”.

Because acknowledging that humanitarian aid is only possible when it coincides with the interests of the “powers that be” does not have to mean giving way to political forces.

Should we conclude from these events that the “humanitarian space” is shrinking, as many observers of the humanitarian scene have been claiming in recent years? NGOs, United Nations agencies and donors are unanimous in deploring a “growing tendency to close the door to humanitarians, preventing them from helping victims”.

As the interview with Benoît Leduc on MSF’s project in Somalia demonstrates, “everything is open to negotiation”. No parameter is fixed from the outset: the safety of personnel, the presence of expatriates, MSF’s intervention priorities, the quality of the assistance provided, control over resources, etc.

Between 1988 and 2008, the humanitarian aid budget increased ten-fold to reach 11.2 billion US dollars.

Eight years after the publication of In the Shadow of Just Wars,6 it examines the precept that the political exploitation of aid is not a misuse of its vocation, but its principal condition of existence.