Conflicting Rules: Global Constitutionalism and the Kosovo Intervention

The 1999 intervention in Kosovo by NATO forces was undertaken to protect the rights of minorities, in this case to force the regime of Slobadan Milosevic to respect the rights of the Kosovar Albanians, a minority in the state of Serbia. This justification for the Kosovo intervention had parallels in Operation Provide Comfort, the military operation to protect Kurds in Northern Iraq in the post-1991 Iraq war. This, at least, is the story that was told by policy elites in North America and Europe in their arguments for the intervention. These justifications for the intervention intersected with other emerging stories about human rights, international order, and military force, best embodied in UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's Chicago speech. This narrative, however, has been undermined by the fact that the intervention did not lead to the creation of a protected minority regime but a protectorate governed by the United Nations with strong aspirations to statehood. The actors on the ground, particularly the Kosovar Albanians, have pushed for statehood against the wishes of the international community. As a result, the rule that was supposedly to be enforced through the intervention has weakened as a valid one in the international order. This article will examine how military force designed to enforce a rule in the international order has helped undermine that very rule. Rather than reinforce the rule that minority rights should be protected, the Kosovo intervention has made intervention a tool for creating new states. The article explores whether or not rules can be enforced in the current international order.