ABSTRACT
The 1999 intervention in Kosovo presents fertile ground for research into the comparative politics and comparative constitutional law of military decision-making. Within a compressed time frame between autumn 1998 and spring 1999, the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) had to reach a set of interconnected decisions: whether there would be a military operation in Kosovo, and if so, which states would participate in the action; whether the NATO vehicle or some other framework would be used for multilateral coordination; what the triggering conditions for military action would be; who would contribute what forms of support; who would exercise command and control over the operation in progress (including its military objectives, targets and choice of weaponry); and how to calibrate military pressure in relation to diplomacy and political initiatives. In the background for each of these decisions were premises about the locus of authority for democratic societies to decide to deploy and use military forces outside national territory. These issues were on some level present for all 19 of the NATO states, whether they ultimately chose to join active military operations or not. 1
