Kosovo is mostly known as a region in the former Yugoslavia where, in 1998 and 1999, there was growing violence between the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which sought independence from Serbia, and the Serbian army and police, which were randomly attacking the province of the indigenous Albanian population as a reprisal for KLA activities. In an effort to prevent further violence, in 1998, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) issued several ultimatums to Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslavian President, demanding that the Serbs stop violence towards the Kosovar Albanian population and withdrew military forces from the province. As the Serbs refused to give in, NATO intervened in Kosovo without asking the permission of the United Nation Security Council and launched an air campaign against Yugoslavia in March 1999: Operation Allied Force (OAF).
[...] Finally, the Kosovo crisis consolidated the international law and the international Justice, particularly important for liberalists' eyes International law It is true that NATO's decision to intervene in Kosovo represented a violation of international law and that it had important consequences for liberal theory, which confers a large importance to international law. As the intervention in Kosovo can be clearly considered as a breach of international law, realists could say that the liberal stress on humanitarian norms and states commitment to adhere to standards of conduct cannot be taken seriously. [...]
[...] He was arrested in April 2001 and was brought before the authorities of The Hague to be judged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Kosovo conflict. Although Slobodan Milosevic died before the end of the trial, it was the first time that a practising head of state was accused of what are considered as the gravest crimes under international law. The Kosovo war with the institution of the ICTY therefore consolidated the international justice, particularly important in the eyes of the liberalists. [...]
[...] First, the neoliberal theory provides a relevant explanation for why NATO intervened in Kosovo According to the neoliberal theory, states are rational and interest- maximizing actors. However, as states converge on shared assumptions, institutions become important promoters of common values and interests. Thus, NATO was built as a tool for consolidating Western principles in Europe. The Kosovo crisis was elevated as an important security problem not because there was a threat from the internal conflict. As explained above, NATO's members had no vital interests at stake in Kosovo. [...]
[...] During the past two years, many attempts have been made to find a compromise between Serbs, who want to keep Kosovo as part of Serbia, and ethnic Albanians, who want to create their own independent state. Recently, on the 20th of November 2007, negotiations between Serbs and Kosovars failed again. They made an appointment for final discussions in the coming week (when I will return this paper) before the 10 December deadline. This is a key date as it is the day when the Troika –which represents the United States, the European Union and Russia–, will present a report to the United Nations about the latest attempts to find an agreement between Pristina and Belgrade. [...]
[...] How do the liberal and neoliberal theories enlighten the Kosovo war and to what extent does the crisis illustrate those theoretical approaches? To what extent do they explain the sources, the conduct, the outcome and the consequences of the Kosovo War? Does the crisis underline limits of the theories? First, neoliberalism enlightens the US motives as well as the conduct of the Kosovo war. Second, the Kosovo crisis can be considered as being a precedent for multilateral action, a key concept of the liberal theory. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
