In discussions with frontline humanitarian agencies, it becomes clear that they are experiencing a mild backlash against global human-rights instruments. Some countries have become apprehensive of signing agreements for fear of later intervention by outside powers on grounds of noncompliance.
The use of the phrase "humanitarian intervention" to justify NATO's war in Kosovo in 1999 confused the identity of humanitarian agencies. They believe that their actions constitute real humanitarian intervention; but what NATO did, and what U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan took up subsequently as a political challenge for the international community, is better described as "military intervention for humanitarian reasons."
NATO's unity held impressively for the duration of the war against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. But the solidarity masked serious disquiet within the alliance, among governments as well as people, about the course and long-term consequences of the war.