Last night's large-scale NATO air attacks on Serb targets followed the breakdown of diplomatic attempts to resolve the Kosovo crisis and the development of a potential humanitarian catastrophe for the Kosovar population at the hands of Serb military forces. The attacks are being undertaken without express approval by the United Nations Security Council and thus are not legally justified. This is deeply regrettable. But given the outright refusal of President Slobodan Milosevic to accept the Rambouillet accords on Kosovo and the sharp escalation of repression against the territory's population, it is not possible to argue that it is without political or moral justification.
Over the last weeks and months, the international community has done its utmost to find a peaceful solution to the Kosovo crisis. At Rambouillet, and last week in Paris, agreement was reached among many of the parties to the conflict on a radical autonomy deal, to be backed up by a NATO-led international force. The Kosovo Liberation Army and its political wings accepted the agreement, but it was rejected by Mr Milosevic, despite the efforts of the US envoy Mr Richard Holbrooke and heavy and sustained pressure from the Russian government. Instead of keeping open the diplomatic route to an agreement, Mr Milosevic has poured troops and police into the region, leading to the displacement of an estimated one quarter of a million civilians, 65,000 of them in the last month.
This military escalation by Serbia against the Kosovar population is a clear breach of the agreements reached last October about demilitarising the conflict. It is a piece of pure bad faith when measured against the months and years of negotiations in ex-Yugoslavia. It is altogether in keeping with Mr Milosevic's dictatorial approach, which has been geared to keep himself in power by opportunistically stoking up ethnic conflicts. The one in Kosovo has grave potential to spread throughout the region, given the presence of the Albanian minority in Macedonia. Hence the tortuous and sensitive efforts to contain the agreement within the terms of autonomy, which would not create new international borders.
Serbia's actions have been justified in the name of strict national sovereignty, on the basis of its territorial integrity and legitimate rule over Kosovo. Justification for NATO's air strikes is couched in the name of international humanitarian intervention. These two principles express not only conflicting legal and political norms, but a potential transition in international affairs after the end of the Cold War.
The Kosovo crisis, and the NATO air strikes, starkly reveal how urgent and necessary it is to bring international law into line with this transition. That they should be so incommensurable, given the changing international environment, is unacceptable.
In this context, it is unsatisfactory that the Government should refuse to express an opinion on whether NATO air strikes are legally justified. According to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, three permanent members of the Security Council say they are, based on humanitarian criteria, while two say they are not, based on sovereignty ones. He says it is not for us to judge between these conflicting views and expresses no view on whether the legal basis for intervention should be changed. This is a lame and feeble response to the Kosovo crisis by a State campaigning to represent Europe on the Security Council in 2001-2.