Independent International Commission on Kosovo

Members

Seven out of eleven members of the commission were from countries which are members of NATO. Richard Goldstone and Carl Tham were appointed as first co-chairmen and other members were chosen for one-year terms. The first eleven members included Anan Ashrawi, Richard A. Falk, Martha Minow, Mary Kaldor, Michael Ignatieff, Grace d'Almeida, Theo Sommer, Jacques Rupnik, Jan Urban, Akiko Domoto, and Oleg Grinevsky. One of the members, Richard A. Falk, later coauthored a work on distinction between legality and legitimacy published in 2012.

Purpose

One of its purposes of the commission was to assess "the adequacy of present norms and institutions in preventing and responding" to ethnic conflict as seen in Kosovo.

Commission's reports

The Commission found that:

The assessment of the Commission regarding the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was that it was "illegal but justified;" it had not been authorized by the UN Security Council, but the intervention was beneficial for the Albanian population at direct risk from the government crackdowns. The commission's finding that the NATO action was illegal may result in determining a responsibility of individuals or state. The decision of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) not to open an investigation against NATO regarding individual responsibility was heavily criticized, as well as the humanitarian interventionism.

The commission criticized NATO's Kosovo Force (KFOR) and the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) for failing to protect minorities in Kosovo and allowing "reverse ethnic cleansing". The commission stated that KFOR was reluctant to and did not have the capability to prevent violence against ethnic minorities and that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and other Albanians ethnically cleansed Kosovo after the international presence was established in Kosovo.

References

References

1. Thomas G. G. Weiss. (23 April 2012). "Thinking about Global Governance: Why People and Ideas Matter". Routledge.
2. (2002). "Israel Yearbook on Human Rights". Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
3. Reza Banakar. (15 December 2010). "Rights in Context: Law and Justice in Late Modern Society". Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..
4. Independent International Commission on Kosovo. "The Kosovo Report".
5. Paul F. J. Aranas. (27 February 2012). "Smokescreen: The US, Nato and the Illegitimate Use of Force". Algora Publishing.
6. (1 January 2006). "International Commission And The Power Of Ideas". Academic Foundation.
7. Martha Minow. (10 January 2009). "Breaking the Cycles of Hatred: Memory, Law, and Repair". Princeton University Press.
8. Denis Smith. (15 September 2006). "Ignatieff's World: A Liberal Leader for the 21st Century?". James Lorimer & Company.
9. (27 March 2012). "Legality and Legitimacy in Global Affairs". Oxford University Press.
10. Anthony Oberschall. (2 March 2007). "Conflict and Peace Building in Divided Societies: Responses to Ethnic Violence". Taylor & Francis.
11. (2001). "The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Supplement". IDRC.
12. (2004). "Reporting War: Journalism in Wartime". Taylor & Francis.
13. Katariina Simonen. (27 July 2011). "The State Versus the Individual: The Unresolved Dilemma of Humanitarian Intervention". Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
14. (30 September 2010). "Human Rights and Memory". Penn State Press.
15. Eyal Benvenisti. (23 February 2012). "The International Law of Occupation". Oxford University Press.
16. Siobhán Wills. (26 February 2009). "Protecting Civilians: The Obligations of Peacekeepers". Oxford University Press.