Does Humanitarian Intervention Serve Human Rights? The Case of Kosovo

The new trend of interventionism, illustrated by NATO’s bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999, has raised serious concerns in International Law. In particular, Operation Allied Force has revived the debate on the existence of a right of humanitarian intervention. In this context, the aim of the present contribution is to reaffirm that no right of humanitarian intervention exists under International Law, and that such right would lead to abuses in the name of human rights. To do so, we will revisit the Charter of the United Nations, before going through the state practice since the adoption of the UN Charter with a special emphasis on the intervention against Serbia in 1999.