Observer Missions and Peace-keeping Operations in Croatia, Bosnia-herzegovina, and Kosovo

This paper deals with the collective security system as provided in Chapters VI, VII and VIII of the UN Charter. Observer missions and peace-keeping operations have no explicit legal basis in the text of the Char ter. They have developed in practice. Each of them is based on decisions either by the Security Council, or sometimes even by the General Assembly. The second part of this article is consecrated to the UN Protection Forces (UNPROFOR) in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In spite of its name, and although equipped with armed weapons, the UNPROFOR was in fact a con cealed observer mission. It had no mandate for peace-keeping, that what was ex pected from it by the Croa tian public. It did not halt the crimes against civi lians in the four parts (UNPA-s) of Croatia occupied by Serbs. Neither did it ensure the return of displaced persons to their homes, what was necessary to create the con ditions for the free and demo cratic elec tions in these Croatian areas endowed with the “spe cial sta tus”. The deception was much higher with the UNPROFOR in Bosnia-Herzego vina. From originally an observer mission like that in Croatia, it was latter on entrusted with the peace-keeping, but never with a clear mandate suf ficient for performing its rapidly expanded duties. It was never au thori zed to use force beyond that required in self-defence, and in order to secure the transportation of humanitarian aid. For instance, the city of Sara jevo was surrounded by the Serbian troops from April 1992 to September 1995 with enormous sufferings of civilians, thus even longer than the siege of Leningrad during World War II. The genocide in Srebre nica that happened in June 1995 was not pre vented, although there were sufficient weapons, but not the will to do that. Therefore, that peace-keeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina was a fiasco for the UN, the same as that in Somalia in 1993. After a review of crimes committed by the Serbian authorities against the Albanian majority population in Kosovo, in Spring 1999 ensued the NATO bombing action on the territory of the Federal Republic of Yugos lavia. Due to the opposition by Russia and China, that enforcement action was not authorized by the UN Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. This article deals in particular with the problem whether in a situation of extreme necessity which dictates the deterrence of a worst evil, a humani tarian inter ven tion by armed forces is under the present inter national law legitimate.