Douzinas: War against Serbia over Kosovo was illegal and immoral
Costas Douzinas, professor of law and director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London, has said that there are no real arguments to justify the illegal military intervention in Kosovo in 1999.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Tuesday, July 01, 2008
The military interventions in Kosovo, in Afghanistan and in Iraq are illegal, but the war against Serbia is an example of the most severe violation of international law, Douzinas said, speaking at a debate at the 10th annual International Law and Ethics Conference Series (ILECS) in Belgrade.
However, while everyone - liberals, leftists and even some rightists - agree that the attack on Iraq was illegal, they are still justifying the attack on and bombardment of Serbia and the entry of NATO troops in Kosovo, Douzinas said.
The London professor was speaking in reaction to a report by Columbia University Professor of Philosophy Virginia Held, who said that the invasion on Iraq, which was spearheaded by the United States, had been illegal and illegitimate, while what took place in Kosovo was allegedly a justified humanitarian intervention.
Douzinas pointed out that a military intervention against a country without a relevant decision of the United Nations Security Council is absolutely illegal. There is no article in international law that permits an attack on a state in order to prevent a humanitarian disaster, he said.
That is why there are now attempts additionally to provide justification for the illegal armed intervention in Kosovo, he said, underscoring that "there can be no moral justification in the case of Kosovo, because it is now known that the claims about alleged massive monstruosities committed there and the alleged murders of 100,000 ethnic Albanians had all been lies".
