LEGAL ANALYSIS OF THE MILITARY CONFLICT IN KOSOVO FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW

Abstract

The article examines the legal qualification of the armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia. The role of the UN Security Council in qualifying the armed conflict in Kosovo is analyzed; based on the analysis of UN Security Council resolutions, the dynamics of the Security Council’s response to the armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia in the process of its escalation was established. The short but brutal conflict in Kosovo, which lasted from February 1998 to mid-June 1999, became the source of long-standing debates among Western governments and the public about the purpose and methods of collective military action. In view of the present Ukraine, the conflict that erupted from a conflict of a non-international nature, we consider it necessary to turn in this publication to the history of the conflict, which took place even in the 20th century, but on the scale of the existence of states, recently. The war prompted Belgrade’s efforts to purge the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of all non-Serb population. It was then that the first large-scale military action in the history of the NATO alliance took place, which was a response to the lawlessness that took place. The article becomes especially relevant given the sharp growth, after the end of the «Cold War», of the concern of the world community regarding the problems of International Humanitarian Law and manifestations of the crime of genocide. International humanitarian law needs changes: to the general principles, it is necessary to add definitions that will be both practically applied and empirically grounded, and will also allow establishing the line at which genocide begins. Perhaps the war in Ukraine will be the trigger, the starting point, which will allow the world community not only to define the concept, but also to respond more quickly to such manifestations, directing aid to support the states that suffered as a result of these actions.