Eastern Europe and Eurasia

Following the recent bombing and shelling of Grozny and other parts of Chechnya in an attempt to quell the resistance there to Russian authority, Russia has urged residents of Grozny to leave the city or face loss of life and property in Russia's "counter-terrorism operation." (New York Times translation of leaflets dropped on Grozny on December 6.) It has been reported that some civilian residents are too elderly, sick or injured to leave the city. The current Russian operation is aimed at defeating the remaining Chechnyan resistance forces in the city.

 

NATO is preparing to interdict deliveries by sea of refined oil bound for Yugoslavia, as a means of ensuring that NATO's bombing of Serbian oil refineries will not be neutralized by the supply of refined oil from other sources.  France and Italy have raised a question whether such interdiction at sea would violate international law. 

 

When the Yugoslav government refused to sign the American-drafted peace accord for Kosovo, and after repeated warnings to Yugoslavia, NATO forces have begun an aerial bombing campaign against Yugoslav military targets. The question arises whether international law permits the use of armed force against Yugoslavia under these circumstances. 

I. Introduction

            On June 28, 2001, the Government of Serbia sent Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia, to The Hague for trial on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.  The surrender of Milosevic complied with an international arrest warrant issued by a United Nations judicial body, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, headquartered in The Hague. Milosevic, a Serb nationalist leader, was indicted by the tribunal in May 1999 on allegations of murder and ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo.