Kosovo and the Challenge of Humanitarian Intervention

Book excerpt: The Kosovo conflict has the potential to redraw the landscape of international politics, with significant ramifications for the UN, major powers, regional organizations, and the way in which we understand and interpret world politics. Can the veto now effectively be circumvented to launch selective enforcement operations? Can the humanitarian imperative be reconciled with the principle of state sovereignty? This book offers interpretations of the Kosovo crisis from numerous perspectives: the conflict-parties, NATO allies, the immediate region surrounding the conflict, and further afield. Country perspectives are followed by scholarly analyses of the longer-term normative, operational, and structural consequences of the Kosovo crisis for world politics.