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In recommending NATO air strikes without prior U.N. Security Council authorization, Clinton's advisers significantly challenged the established international legal order. The proposed response would elevate principles of humanitarian intervention above norms of state sovereignty and would make a regional organization rather than the Security Council the final arbiter.
A. Humanitarian Intervention vs. State Sovereignty.
Invoking a customary law doctrine of unilateral humanitarian intervention, 19th Century Christian governments had justified rescue missions in the Ottoman Empire's Balkans territory. U.N. Charter Article 2(4) appears to forbid such military intervention after 1945: "All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, . . ." Chapter VII of the Charter grants the Security Council the military means to maintain international peace. After the Cold War, the Council began approving U.N. humanitarian intervention when anarchy in countries like Somalia caused massive suffering, even though international conflict was unlikely.
As a member of the 1992 Carnegie Endowment National Commission on America and the New World, Holbrooke believed: "A new principle of international relations is arising: the destruction or displacement of groups of people within states justifies international intervention. A new balance must be struck between traditional sovereignty and the world community’s interest in human rights."32 The Haiti initiative illustrated Clinton's preference for multilateral U.N. action rather than unilateral U.S. intervention. Since Russia and China would surely veto air strikes against Yugoslavia, Clinton's advisers now recommended NATO action without prior U.N. review.
