Limits of Law, Prerogatives of Power : Interventionism After Kosovo

NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia was justified. NATO violated the United Nations Charter - but nations have used armed force so often that the ban on non-defensive use of force has been cast into doubt. Dangerous cracks in the international legal order have surfaced - widened, ironically, by the UN Security Council itself, which has ridden roughshod over the Charter's ban on intervention. Yet nations remain hopelessly divided on what the rules should be. An unplanned geopolitical order has thus emerged - posing serious dilemmas for American policy-makers in a world where intervention will be judged more by wisdom than by law. With the end of the Cold War, many believed that a new, more stable international legal order would emerge. But an enormous gap in values--most noticeably concerning armed intervention--has prevented that from happening. One group of nations continues to cling to the United Nations Charter's ban against intervention, while another group-led by NATO and the UN Security Council itself-openly violates that prohibition. In fact, the ban has been breached so often that it can no longer be regarded as authoritative. Whether the resulting legal vacuum can be filled is the overriding international question of the era Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-11 Kosovo and the United Nations Charter....Pages 13-35 The Effect of State Practice on the Charter....Pages 37-65 State Practice: The Charter and Interstate Violence....Pages 67-100 Security Council Practice: The Charter and Intrastate Violence....Pages 101-143 The Collapse of Consent: Is a Legalist Use-of-Force Regime Possible?....Pages 145-176 The International Parallel Universe: Is a Legalist Use-of-Force Regime Desirable?....Pages 177-205 Conclusion....Pages 207-209 Back Matter....Pages 211-250 NATO violated the United Nations Charter by bombing Yogoslavia, but nations have used armed force so often that the ban on non-defensive use of force has been cast into doubt. Nations remain hopelessly divided on what the rules should be. This title discusses this and other issues