ABSTRACT

Ever since the NATO intervention in Serbia, Serbia’s political elite, its intelligentsia and a large part of the civil society sector have been unsure how to qualify the imperative to respect and protect human rights in light of national sovereignty. By definition, the primacy of human rights is what distinguishes the human security approach from traditional state securitybased approaches. Traditionally, the latter considers that sovereignty should take precedence over human rights – with all the expected consequences for designing a country’s foreign policy. In reality, the discourse of human rights has never substantially influenced political actors throughout Serbia’s modern history, due to deeply held and entrenched institutional and cultural obstacles. That said, the discussions on sovereignty and human rights held in the country during NATO’s intervention and in its aftermath have not fully considered the implications of international humanitarian law and the international human rights regime.