The politics of legitimacy in international relations: A critical examination of NATO's intervention in Kosovo

Alternatives

Volumn 25, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 515-536

  Shinoda, Hideaki ^a  

^a HIROSHIMA UNIVERSITY   (Japan)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 23044524406     PISSN: 03043754     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030437540002500405     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. George Robertson, House of Commons Select Committee on Defence, Hearings, March 24, 1999, Q.390, quoted in Adam Roberts, "NATO's 'Humanitarian War' over Kosovo," Survival: The IISS Quarterly 41, no. 3 (1999): 112.
2. Press Conference by Secretary General Dr. Javier Solana and SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander in Europe) Gen. Wesley Clark on March 25, 1999.
3. Ibid.
4. Dieter Kastrup, of Germany, speaking on behalf of the Council of Europe at an urgent Security Council meeting on March 24, 1999, stressed that "the policy of the Council of Europe was neither directed against the Yugoslav or Serb population nor against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or the Republic of Serbia." He said it was directed against the irresponsible policy of the Yugoslav leadership; President Milosevic must stop Serb aggression in Kosovo and sign the Rambouillet Accords. Press release SC/6657, "NATO Action against Serbian Military Targets Prompts Divergent Views as Security Council Holds Urgent Meeting on Situation in Kosovo."
5. Agim Nesho, of Albania, strongly supported NATO's action and proclaimed, NATO Action against Serbian Military Targets Prompts Divergent Views as Security Council Holds Urgent Meeting on Situation in Kosovo ibid., that "the international community had not declared war on Serbia - that war had already existed." Nesho's understanding seems that a war had already taken place within the Yugoslav federal republic, and NATO just intervened in it.
6. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office of Britain explanation was that "as early as June 1998, the UK had prepared a draft Security Council resolution expressing concern at the situation in Kosovo and authorising the use of 'all necessary measures.' This had received wide support in informal consultations in New York, but Russia made clear it would veto such a resolution if it were put to a vote." "Memorandum by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office": http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmfaff/28/9111803. htm, para. 43.
7. The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs concluded that NATO countries could have resorted to the so-called "Uniting for Peace Resolution" to ask the General Assembly to support the use of force. Emyr Jones Parry, the political director of the British Foreign Office, answering a question on this point, said that he believed "whether or not we had a legal justification, that could only have come from the Security Council." See "Minutes of Evidence: Examination of Witnesses," Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Commons, Fourth Report: Kosovo: Minutes of Evidence and Appendices: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/ cmfaff/28/9111818.htm.
8. UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1199, Sept. 23, 1998: http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/1998/sres1199.htm.
9. UNSC resolution 1203, October 24, 1998: http://www.un.org/ Docs/scres/1998/sres1203.htm.
10. UNSC resolutions 1199 and 1203. See also Resolution 1160 on March 31, 1998: http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/1998/sres1160.htm.
11. Marc Weller points out that the constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia provided for secession of its constitutional units, one of which Kosovo constitutes, but the international organizations involved did not respect it. See Marc Weller, "The Rambouillet Conference on Kosovo," International Affairs 75, no. 2 (1999): 214-215.
12. UNSC Resolution 1203.
13. Press release SC/6659, "Security Council Rejects Demand for Cessation of Use of Force against Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."
14. See Kofi A. Annan, "Two Concepts of Sovereignty," Economist, September 18, 1999: http://www.un.org/Overview/SG/kaecon.htm.
15. In the words of Emry Jones Parry, "you could also pray in aid Article 1.3 of the Charter which deals with human rights, and a very important other dimension which in part is in contradiction to 2.7. There is no clear unequivocal answer to this. It is a matter of judgment." Select Committee, Foreign Affairs, note 5.
16. Javier Solana, "NATO's Success in Kosovo," Foreign Affairs 78, no. 6 (1999): 118.
17. Press release, note 10.
18. There is an argument that NATO, as an alliance, is not formally a regional agency. To me, the argument does not seem convincing.
19. One-page note by Foreign and Commonwealth Office of Oct. 7, 1998: "FRY/Kosovo: The Way Ahead; UK View on Legal Base for Use of Force," quoted in Roberts, note 1, p. 106.
20. "Doctrine of the International Community," speech by Prime Minister Blair to the Economic Club of Chicago, Hilton Hotel, Apr. 22, 1999: http://www.fco.gov.uk/news/speechtext.asp?2316.
21. Vaclav Havel, "Kosovo and the End of the Nation-State," New York Review of Books, June 10, 1999 (reprint of address to Canadian Senate and House of Commons, Apr. 29, 1999).
22. Vaclav Havel, Kosovo and the End of the Nation-State, New York Review of Books, 1999. Ibid.
23. Press release, note 10.
24. "Doctrine," note 17.
25. "Statement on Kosovo," heads of state and government at North Atlantic Council meeting, Washington, D.C., Apr. 23, 24, 1999: http:// www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-062e.htm.
26. Quoted in Select Committee, Foreign Affairs, note 5: http://www. publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmfaff/28/2810.htm.
27. Foreign Affairs, Ibid.
28. Quoted Foreign Affairs, ibid.
29. Editorial, "NATO's Kosovo Intervention," American Journal of International Law 93, no. 4 (1999): http://www.asil.org/kosovo.htm.
30. Louis Henken, "Kosovo and the Law of 'Humanitarian Intervention,'" American Journal of International Law ibid.
31. Ruth Wedgwood, "NATO's Campaign in Yugoslavia," American Journal of International Law ibid.
32. See UN Charter, article 51.
33. Abram Chayes argues that while the United States never formally acknowledged that Resolution 678 was legally required, the US use of force in the Gulf with the authorization of the Security Council enhances its legal and political positions at the maximum. See Chayes, "The Use of Force in the Persian Gulf," in Lori Fisler Damrosch and David J. Scheffer, eds., Law and Force in the New International Order (Boulder: Westview, 1991), pp. 8-11.
34. Among skeptical views on the authority of the Council are W. Michael Reisman, "Allocating Competences to Use Coercion in the Post-Cold War World: Practices, Conditions, and Prospects";
35. Richard Gardner, "Commentary on the Law of Self-Defense";
36. David B. Rivkin Jr., "Commentary on Aggression and Self-Defense," all Commentary on the Law of Self-Defense ibid.
37. Danilo Türk, representative of Slovenia at the UN Security Council, pointed out in the debate on the NATO bombing that "the Council had chosen to remain silent at times when regional organizations sought to remove regional threats to peace and security." Press release, note 10.
38. See Roberts, note 1.
39. See UN Charter, article 103.
40. Jonathan I. Charney, "Anticipatory Humanitarian Intervention in Kosovo," in American Journal of International Law 93, no. 4 (1999).
41. Jonathan I. Charney, Anticipatory Humanitarian Intervention in Kosovo American Journal of International Law 93, 4 (1999). Ibid.
42. Charney argued, American Journal of International Law ibid., that "in the Nicaragua case, the International Court of Justice found that, to challenge a rule of international law, the state practice relied upon must be clearly predicated on an alternative rule of law; but NATO has not justified its actions on the basis of a specific rule of law - even humanitarian intervention - new or old. Throughout the campaign, NATO offered no legal justification for it."
43. Roberts, note 1, pp. 110-112.
44. See, for instance, Richard N. Haass, Intervention: The Use of Military Force in the Post-Cold War World, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), pp. 177-179.
45. The accusations against NATO for its violations of international humanitarian law are made by two prominent human-rights groups, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. They argued that had NATO conducted its attacks carefully enough to observe the laws of war in selecting targets and weapons, it could have avoided more civilian casualties. See Human Rights Watch Report 12, no. 1 (2000),
46. "Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign": http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/nato/;
47. Human Rights Watch Report 11, no. 6 (1999),
48. "Ticking Time Bombs: NATO's Use of Cluster Munitions in Yugoslavia": http://www.hrw.org/ hrw/reports/1999/nato2/;
49. Amnesty International Report EUR 70/ 18/00 (2000),
50. "NATO/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: 'Collateral Damage' or Unlawful Killings? Violations of the Laws of War by NATO During Operation Allied Force": http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aipub/2000/ EUR/47001800.htm.
51. On the decision by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia not to investigate the NATO bombing, see the summary of "ICTY Weekly Press Briefing," Jun. 7, 2000: http://www.un.org/icty/briefing/PB070600.htm.
52. Richard Falk, "Kosovo, World Order, and the Future of International Law," in American Journal of International Law 93, no. 4 (1999).
53. Christine M. Chinkin, "Kosovo: A 'Good' or 'Bad' War?" American Journal of International Law ibid.
54. Thomas M. Franck, "Lessons of Kosovo," American Journal of International Law ibid.
55. Noam Chomsky succinctly points out that "one choice, always, is to follow the Hippocratic principle: 'First, do no harm.'" Chomsky, "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric": http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/9903-current_bombings.htm.
56. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, remarks at American Bar Association dinner - Central and East European Law Initiative - in honor of Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, president, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Washington, D.C., Apr. 5, 1999: http:// secretary.state.gov/www/statements/1999/990405a.html.
57. Flora Lewis, "The Kosovo Mission of the United Nations Is Being Left to Fail," International Herald Tribune, Mar. 10, 2000.
58. Select Committee, Foreign Affairs, note 5: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmfaff/28/2815. htm#n450.
59. For a study of legitimacy as liberal order, see John Williams, Legitimacy in International Relations and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia (London: Macmillan, 1998).
60. Michael MccGwire, "Why Did We Bomb Belgrade?" International Affairs 76, no. 1 (2000): 20.
61. Michael MccGwire, Why Did We Bomb Belgrade? International Affairs 76, 1 (2000): 20. Ibid.