ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to discuss certain aspects of the controversial Kosovo mission of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), codenamed Operation Allied Force, through the lens of international law, as well as to examine briefly the factual circumstances of the air operation in order to answer the question whether or not the world was facing a humanitarian intervention in March-June 1999. Much has been said, but less is known, about humanitarian intervention, a hotly debated, very special legal phenomenon that has been setting international lawyers against one another for a long period of time. For this reason, I consider it essential to outline the notion of humanitarian intervention and also to enumerate its unique characteristics within the framework of this chapter. Once these features are introduced, they can be applied to the 1998/9 Kosovo realities, thus the determination of the above mentioned question becomes possible.
