Security Council Action in the Balkans: Reviewing the Legality of Kosovo's Territorial Status Enrico Milano* Full text available: PDF format ** Abstract This article examines Kosovo's territorial status by reviewing the legal basis of its international administration. Despite the reassuring claim that the United Nations and NATO authority in Kosovo is based on Security Council Resolution 1244, the consensual element provided by the agreements underlying that resolution cannot be overlooked. Investigating the validity of these agreements, namely the 3 June 1999 Agreement and the Kumanovo Agreement, means linking the discussion to the application of Article 52 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of the Treaties on the coercion of states. This is necessary, with respect to the Kumanovo Agreement, due to the non-compliance of Operation Allied Force with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and the coercion exercised over the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The picture is further complicated by the expansionist approach of the Security Council in interpreting its powers under Chapter VII. However, not even the broad terms of UN legality seem to encompass the Security Council's power to endorse agreements, which are void under Article 52 VCLT. The conclusion inevitably claims the unlawfulness of NATO security presence and recalls the need for signature of a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between NATO and Belgrade as a means of curing the original illegality. *Phd Candidate and Teaching Assistant, London School of Economics. I am grateful for helpful comments by Christine Chinkin, Tarcisio Gazzini, Gerry Simpson and Attila Tanzi on earlier versions of this article. I wish to thank also Shahram Shoraka and Stephen Tully for their language revision of the text. Views, omissions and errors are, of course, my own. The article is based on developments as of March 2003.
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