Dieter S. Lutz (ed.), Der Kosovo-Krieg. Rechtliche und rechtsethische Aspekte [The War in Kosovo. Legal and ethical aspects], DSF Demokratie, Sicherheit, Frieden, Vol. 127, Nomos: Baden-Baden, 2000. 366pp., 34 EUR, ISBN 3-7890-6520-X (Paperback).
Reviewed by Josette A. Baer (REECAS, Jackson School, University of Washington, Seattle), Email: baerj@u.washington.edu
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"The self-entitlement of NATO must not become a rule." (Juergen Habermas, p. 226)
The present volume concerns legal and ethical aspects of the war NATO led in 1999 against Serbia. The so-called Kosovo campaign was legitimised by arguments of a moral nature: NATO saw fit to start a war against the Milosevic regime in Belgrade in order to prevent a possible Albanian genocide in Kosovo. Humanitarian intervention was the key word officials used to explain why NATO embarked on war lacking a mandate by the UN. Back in 1999, the war in Kosovo was considered a crucial issue involving ethics, law and politics. Supporters of the war argued that the intervention was necessary due to the violation of Human Rights and the threat of genocide in Kosovo. The memories of the horrors ethnic nationalism had unleashed in former Yugoslavia were still fresh. Opponents of the NATO war criticised the lack of will to find a diplomatic solution arguing with the sovereignty of the Serbian State as one of the legal principles of Public International Law. Humanitarian reasons would not justify a violent attack on a sovereign state. The book of Lutz is an excellent introduction into the mechanisms of international institutions such as UN, OSCE and NATO as well as the legal aspects of political decision-making. The similarity of the Kosovo war and the current war in Iraq is obvious and the book draws on questions that will be crucial in the nearer future, given the current divide of the UN security council: What do the UN stand for? What does global order mean? Is Iraq the end of NATO and the beginning establishment of the so-called multi-polar world? And, given a multi-polar world, according to which principles should it be accepted, i.e. as a truly multi-cultural one that involves acceptance of Human Rights violations by governments?
The list of international authors contributing to the interdisciplinary character of the book is very impressive: Juergen Habermas, Daniel Thuerer, Otfried Hoeffe, Hauke Brunkhorst, Dieter Senghaas and Sibylle Toennies, to name a few, cover the topic from the perspectives of Political Philosophy, Public International Law, Philosophy and Political Science. The volume consists of twenty-four articles and an appendix with a legal documentation as well as the five UN resolutions on Serbia. Due to the high scientific quality of the articles that deal with questions of ethics and Human Rights in terms of international politics, global political institutions as actors and Public International Law as the legitimating paradigm of international politics, I highly recommend this volume. Students and scholars interested in Public International Law, Political Philosophy and International Relations will find compelling arguments in favour of and against of what Habermas calls "the end of the long period of reticence" (Lange Periode einer Zurueckhaltung, p. 217) meaning the Kosovo war that set an end to the peaceful five decades after WW II.
Indeed, I cannot help the impression that the NATO war in Kosovo, and its legal and ethical implications the contents of the book deal with, was the beginning of a new period in international politics, which is characterised by the divide of the actors in charge (UN, NATO) on which principles a future global order should be based upon. In both Kosovo and Iraq, the legal justification to go to war seems somewhat unclear. What, after all, should we consider to be the last argument of legitimacy for going to war? Human Rights, state sovereignty and ambiguity of decision-making are issues involved with terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and cruel regimes. I think that the Iraq war is of a similar qualitative nature because of the increasingly sharp divide of argumentation: prevention of terrorism or the absolute respect of state sovereignty? I think, Habermas, as I quoted him above, is right in considering self-entitlement of international institutions / actors as one of the dangers threatening international relations from within. Yet, as history has shown, the lack of political will or unanimity to face the facts of a potential threat can be dangerous too.
This an earlier book reviews are available at: www.seep.ceu.hu/balkans (as the website is awaiting a major revamping, this and recent reviews have not be included yet)