Legitimacy of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

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The legitimacy under international law of the 1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been questioned. The UN Charter is the foundational legal document of the United Nations (UN) and is the cornerstone of the public international law governing the use of force between States. NATO members are also subject to the North Atlantic Treaty.^[1]

Supporters of the bombing argued that the bombing brought to an end the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo's Albanian population, and that it hastened (or caused) the downfall of Slobodan Milošević's government, which they saw as having been responsible for the international isolation of Yugoslavia, war crimes, and human rights violations.

Critics of the bombing have argued that the campaign violated international law.^[2][3] Some also argued that NATO triggered or accelerated the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo as the violence escalated once the campaign began.