ABSTRACT
The American-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) attack on Slobodan Milosevic’s Yugoslavia beginning on March 24, 1999, represented the culmination of years of tension, hostility, and growing genocidal fervor in an already violence-wracked region. The Kosovo crisis and subsequent NATO air war against Yugoslavia teemed with issues central to the fields of genocide studies, world politics, and contemporary foreign policy. The Kosovo conflict raises for us today any number of fundamental questions, including but not limited to:
Did the actions by Serb forces under the direction of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic constitute genocide as put forth in the UN Convention? If so, what was the moral obligation/ national interest equation that compelled intervention by the U.S. and its allies?
Was “humanitarian intervention” justified and legal, particularly given the lack of formal UN sanction?
How should humanitarian war be waged? and;
What is the state of normative evolution in world politics on the issue of genocide prevention and punishment since the UN Genocide Convention of 1948?
