{"id":1710,"date":"2020-07-27T12:15:09","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T11:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.balkan-conflicts-research.com\/archive\/?page_id=1710"},"modified":"2020-07-27T13:32:15","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T12:32:15","slug":"legality-of-nato-attack-discussed","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.balkan-conflicts-research.com\/archive\/legality-of-nato-attack-discussed\/","title":{"rendered":"Legality of NATO Attack Discussed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span>Thursday March 25 1999 1:27 PM ET<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Legality of NATO Attack Discussed<\/strong><\/p>\n

By JOHN DIAMOND Associated Press Writer<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON (AP) – Legal justification for the U.S.-led NATO airoffensive against Yugoslavia is written in no diplomatic charter, international\u00a0law or U.N. Security Council resolution. At best, scholars say, the Clinton\u00a0administration can rely on an unwritten principle that allows intervention\u00a0to protect people besieged by their own government.<\/p>\n

The administration lists a range of practical and political reasons for\u00a0the attack. The trouble in Yugoslavia could spread to neighboring states,\u00a0President Clinton said. Belgrade has failed to abide by international\u00a0agreements. But for the strikes, Yugoslavia would continue attacks on\u00a0the independence-seeking ethnic Albanians in the Kosovo province of Serbia.<\/p>\n

International legal scholars see scant legal backing for the NATOaction beyond the unwritten principle of “humanitarian intervention” that\u00a0permits nations to violate the sovereignty of another to stop\u00a0widespread human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know any neighboring state that’s been threatened, and Idon’t see how this (attack) can be self-defense,” said Allan Gerson, a\u00a0senior fellow in international law at the Council on Foreign Relations. As for\u00a0Yugoslavia’s refusal to settle the Kosovo crisis peacefully, he said,\u00a0“I don’t know of any precedent that gives you the right to go to war\u00a0against any party that refuses to reach a settlement at the peace table.”<\/p>\n

But Gerson said the strictures of international law must move aside in\u00a0an emergency. “When you have massive human rights abuses, it’s important\u00a0that you respond immediately,” he said.<\/p>\n

Asked specifically to explain the legalities of the strikes, State\u00a0Department spokesman James Rubin cited three factors: Yugoslavia’s\u00a0failure to negotiate seriously to avoid further conflict in Kosovo, its failure\u00a0to comply with its own earlier cease-fire agreement and the renewed\u00a0Yugoslav offensive in Kosovo.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Janet Reno said Thursday the Justice Department had\u00a0told the White House that U.S. participation in the NATO mission “was\u00a0constitutionally and otherwise lawfully authorized.”<\/p>\n

Anthony Arend, a professor of government at Georgetown University and\u00a0co-author of a 1993 book, “International Law and the Use of Force,”\u00a0said there is “a customary practice adopted since 1945 that allows states\u00a0to intervene in any number of circumstances to promote justice.”<\/p>\n

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has repeatedly cast the strikes\u00a0as a violation of his country’s sovereignty.<\/p>\n

In Moscow, Russian President Boris Yeltsin called the strikes\u00a0“outright aggression.” Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said the military\u00a0action “has no justification, legal, political or moral.”<\/p>\n

Ted Galen Carter of Washington’s libertarian Cato Institute said the\u00a0administration was “guilty of committing a flagrant, shameful act of\u00a0aggression” by “attacking a country that has not attacked the United\u00a0States, a U.S. ally or even a neighboring state.”\u00a0The U.N. Security Council has passed no resolution authorizing the use\u00a0of force – indeed, permanent members Russia and possibly China would have\u00a0vetoed such a proposal.<\/p>\n

The Security Council “should be involved in any decision to resort to\u00a0force,” said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.<\/p>\n

The U.N. charter permits the use of force in self-defense if a country\u00a0is attacked from the outside, but the Kosovo case is internal to\u00a0Yugoslavia. The charter recognizes regional organizations such as NATO but permits\u00a0their use of force only if the United Nations specifically authorizes it.<\/p>\n

Further, the charter explicitly orders member states to refrain from\u00a0the use of force against the territorial integrity of any state.<\/p>\n

The Dutch ambassador to the United Nations, Peter van Walsum, said NATO\u00a0would “prefer to be able to base its action on a specific Security\u00a0Council resolution” and he defended Annan’s assertion of U.N. authority.<\/p>\n

“If, however, due to one or two permanent members’ rigid\u00a0interpretation of the concept of domestic jurisdiction, such a resolution is not\u00a0attainable, we cannot sit back and simply let the humanitarian catastrophe occur,”\u00a0van Walsum said at Wednesday’s Security Council meeting.<\/p>\n

A formal treaty dating to the founding of the United Nations after\u00a0World War II not only empowers, but requires nations to intervene to stop\u00a0genocide, according to Neil Kritz of the United States Institute for\u00a0Peace. While Yugoslav forces have been accused of carrying out massacres of\u00a0Kosovar civilians, international officials have not yet termed the\u00a0situation in Kosovo a genocide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Thursday March 25 1999 1:27 PM ET \u00a0Legality of NATO Attack Discussed By JOHN DIAMOND Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) – Legal justification for the U.S.-led NATO airoffensive against Yugoslavia is written in no diplomatic charter, international\u00a0law or U.N. Security Council resolution. At best, scholars say, the Clinton\u00a0administration can rely on an unwritten principle that … <\/p>\n

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