The Applicability of International Humanitarian Law and the Law of Neutrality to the Kosovo Campaign

Abstract

he purpose of this paper1 is to examine the applicability of international humanitarian law and the law of neutrality to Operation Allied Force, the NATO campaign over Kosovo in 1999. The paper is thus chiefly about jus in bello (which is treated here as synonymous with the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law), not about jus ad bellum. It is not intended, therefore, to enter into the controversy regarding the legality of the decision to resort to force over Kosovo or the long-running debate over whether contemporary international law recognizes a right of humanitarian intervention in the face of large scale violations of human rights. The present writer has already made clear in other publications his view that a right of humanitarian intervention (albeit one of a strictly limited character) exists in