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Hindsight always appears better than foresight. Hopefully, the reexamination of past events will provide lessons for the future. Recent media reports have analyzed the genocide in Rwanda and blamed France, the United States, and the UN Security Council for their failures to take steps that might have prevented or stopped the atrocities. Academic studies also argue how the atrocities in Chechnya, Kosovo, and East Timor may have been prevented or stopped by the United Nations or others in the international community. Such analyses are for international relations authorities and military experts. As an international lawyer, I am reluctant to tread in those domains. For me, the question is whether changes in international law might modify the behavior of major international actors such as states, intergovernmental organizations, and nongovernmental organizations. In the future, they might be better prepared if situations like Chechnya, Kosovo, or East Timor were to arise. Certainly, there is no lack of international law condemning the atrocities that took place in those territories. The existence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)--with authority to prosecute persons who committed international crimes in Kosovo--did not appear to deter Slobodan Milosevic and his supporters in their drive to crush the Kosovo independence movement and ethnically cleanse the region. No international criminal tribunal had jurisdiction over the Russian actions in Chechnya. While some hope that the establishment of the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) will deter the commission of international crimes, its efficacy remains unproven. Samuel Huntington might chalk these events up to the inevitable clashes of civilizations during the "multipolar and multicivilizational" period he argues we have entered. While fate may be on the side of continuing and escalating conflicts of this nature, it is incumbent upon us to seek ways to minimize or eliminate recurrences of these events anywhere in the ...

The intervention by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Kosovo during the spring of 1999 aroused controversy at the time and still provokes questions about the legality of the action, its precedential effect, and procedures for developing new international law. The participants faced a legal and moral dilemma between international law prohibitions on the use of force and the goal of preventing or stopping widespread grave violations of international human rights. This commentary seeks to chart a course for the future in light of the current legal and moral environment. Many individuals on all sides of the Kosovo crisis maintained the highest standards of law and morality. Regrettably, others, particularly political leaders, fell short of their moral or legal obligations or both. Of the latter, the leadership of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) headed by Slobodan Milosevic stands out. The FRY committed grave international crimes against the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. However, both the ethnic Albanians and the Serbs in Kosovo engaged in aggressive and brutal actions against each other and both were at fault, legally and morally. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has also committed terrorist and other brutal acts against the Yugoslav Serbs and the FRY forces. As for the United Nations, though perhaps not morally at fault, it did not address the Kosovo problem in a timely and effective manner, as is its responsibility. Indisputably, the NATO intervention through its bombing campaign violated the U.N. Charter and international law. As a result, the intervention risked destabilizing the international rule of law that prohibits a state or group of states from intervening by the use of force in another state, absent authorization by the U.N. Security Council or a situation of self-defense. The NATO actions, regardless of how well-intentioned, constitute an unfortunate precedent for states to use force to suppress the commission of international crimes in other states--grounds that easily can be and ...