More usefully, we can explore possible ways of resolving them. With these overarching goals in mind, this paper will in the first instance examine why the international community, or more correctly key members of it have intervened for humanitarian reasons with greater frequency in recent years and why the imperatives to do so are unlikely to disappear in the foreseeable future. With the Kosovo conflict as the prime example, the second part of the paper focuses on the main sources of contention in crises of this kind and which can be reasonably expected, therefore, to surface again in the future. The final part explores ways to reduce these sources friction and address the underlying issue.1
II: Kosovo in Context: The imperatives of intervention
Two broad trends help explain why humanitarian intervention has become more commonplace since the end of the cold war. The first is the evolution of what can be termed global community interests. The accelerating pace of "globalization" is all too apparently making the world a more interconnected and interdependent place. Though beneficial in myriad ways, the downside of greater interdependence is that states have become more exposed to what had previously seemed distant and incon-sequential―whether it be far away conflicts, currency fluctuations, crop failures or contagion. The consequences of such events can reverberate across national and regional boundaries with great rapidity to pose in some cases an immediate menace to one's livelihood and security.2 As a consequence, states have developed a growing interest in the collective management of global affairs in general and threatened or actual outbreaks of major conflict in particular, regardless of whether it occurs within or between states.
Among the first to recognize this imperative was President George Bush in his famous "new world order" speech in the heady days following the end of the Gulf War3 A decade later, British Prime Minister Tony Blair would echo the same basic message to justify intervention in Kosovo. In a speech before the Economic Club of Chicago he declared "We are witnessing the beginnings of a new doctrine of international community. By this I mean the explicit recognition that more than ever before, we are mutual dependent, that national interest is to a significant extent governed by international collaboration and we need a clear and coherent debate as to the direction this doctrine takes us in each field of international endeavour."4
The second broad trend is the evolution of what can be termed global community values. The increasing number of countries under varying forms of democratic governance following the decline of communism has enlarged the community of states that share (in principle at least) a common value system including respect for fundamental human rights and the rule of law. As a consequence the international norm against states using force in ways that can be considered "aggressive," "repressive," "excessive," or "indiscriminate"―regardless of whether it is externally or internally directed―is now stronger and more widely shared than ever before. Indeed, the general opprobrium for such violent acts is reflected in an expanding body of international law explicitly proscribing them.
The combination of managerial and moral imperatives that both trends engender has been propelled in important ways by the growing influence of global news media. The intrusive and near instantaneous gaze of news organizations has helped to reinforce the sense of global "inter-connectedness" and, ensure, moreover, that no significant use of force, humanitarian disaster or major "moral outrage" goes either unnoticed or lacks for a global audience.
