Revisiting the Deadlock in the UN Security Council over NATO intervention in Kosovo (original) (raw)

2012, Proceedings of the 1st International Balkan Congress

On 24 March 1999, NATO, invoking humanitarian concerns, launched Operation Allied Force in the absence of a resolution of the UN Security Council explicity authorizing the use of force. The reluctance of the UN Security Council to authorize a military intervention in the Kosovo case contrasted with its willingness to authorize the defence of human rights by force previously manifested with respect to Bosnia, Somalia Haiti and Rwanda. By comparing these four cases with the Kosovo case, this paper argues that the inability of the UN Security Council to pass a resolution on Kosovo authorizing the use of “all necessary means” could by partially explained as resulting from two characteristics of this case: the anticipatory nature of the military intervention and the absence of the consent of the targeted state. The viability of this explanation is tested with respect to the UN Security Council authorization for the use of force in East Timor, issued, on humanitarian grounds, only three months after the end of Operation Allied Force. The paper concludes that in 1999 the UN Security Council was not prepared to authorize a classical humanitarian intervention

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