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100-503: NATO victory Human Rights Watch estimate: 489–528 civilians killed (60% of whom were in Kosovo) Yugoslav estimate : 1,200–2,000 civilians killed and about 6,000 civilians wounded FHP : [REDACTED] 218 Albanians, [REDACTED] 204 Serbs and 30 others Wartime events Aftermath Aspects [REDACTED] The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against

200-622: A SAM threat actually increased from the Gulf War, and electronic warfare wings could no longer reprogram their own jamming pods but had to send them elsewhere for the task. Further difficulties came in the form of airspace restrictions, which forced NATO aircraft into predictable flight paths, and rules of engagement which prevented NATO from targeting certain sites for fear of collateral damage . In particular this applied to early-warning radars located in Montenegro, which remained operational during

300-829: A global network of non-governmental organizations that monitor censorship worldwide. It also co-founded the Cluster Munition Coalition , which brought about an international convention banning the weapons. HRW employs more than 275 staff—country experts, lawyers, journalists, and academics—and operates in more than 90 countries around the world. Headquartered in New York City , it has offices in Amsterdam , Beirut , Berlin , Brussels , Chicago , Geneva , Johannesburg , London , Los Angeles , Nairobi , Seoul , Paris , San Francisco , Sydney , Tokyo , Toronto , Washington, D.C. , and Zürich . HRW maintains direct access to

400-683: A huge mobilisation of troops and resources. On 23 March 1999 at 22:17 UTC the Secretary General of NATO , Javier Solana , announced he had directed the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Wesley Clark , to "initiate air operations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." The campaign involved 1,000 aircraft operating from air bases in Italy and Germany, and the aircraft carrier USS  Theodore Roosevelt sailing in

500-531: A mass membership, as AI is, HRW depends on wealthy donors who like to see the organization's reports make headlines. For this reason, according to Foreman, it may be that organizations like HRW "concentrate too much on places that the media already cares about," especially Israel. For the financial year ending June 2008, HRW reported receiving approximately US$ 44 million in public donations. In 2009, HRW said it received almost 75% of its financial support from North America, 25% from Western Europe and less than 1% from

600-637: A permanent access to attend the organization's assemblies. Bahrain held the IPU Meeting from 11–15 March 2023. Pursuant to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Human Rights Watch opposes violations of what the UDHR considers basic human rights . This includes capital punishment and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation . HRW advocates freedoms in connection with fundamental human rights, such as freedom of religion and freedom of

700-505: A perpendicular angle, though this made spotting ground traffic more difficult. By focusing on their operational survival, Yugoslav air defences ceded a certain amount of air superiority to NATO forces. Yet the persistence of their credible SAM threat forced NATO to allocate greater resources to continued SEAD operations rather than conducting other missions, while Yugoslav AAA and MANPADS forced NATO aircraft to fly at 15,000 ft (4,600 m) or higher. NATO reportedly fired 743 HARMs during

800-526: A plan has been called into question. Serbian Television claimed that huge columns of refugees were fleeing Kosovo because of NATO's bombing, not Yugoslav military operations. The Yugoslav side and its Western supporters claimed the refugee outflows were caused by a mass panic in the Kosovo Albanian population, and that the exodus was generated principally by fear of NATO bombs. The United Nations and international human rights organisations were convinced

900-714: A political party led by Milošević's wife, and the Avala TV Tower . Some protested that these actions were violations of international law and the Geneva Conventions . NATO argued these facilities were potentially useful to the Yugoslav military and thus their bombing was justified. On 12 April, NATO airstrikes struck a railway bridge in Grdelica , hitting a civilian passenger train and killing twenty people. Showing video footage, General Wesley Clark later apologized and stated that

1000-566: A private American NGO in 1978, under the name Helsinki Watch , to monitor the then- Soviet Union 's compliance with the Helsinki Accords . Helsinki Watch adopted a practice of publicly " naming and shaming " abusive governments through media coverage and direct exchanges with policymakers. Helsinki Watch says that, by shining the international spotlight on human rights violations in the Soviet Union and its European partners, it contributed to

1100-562: A report accusing Israel of apartheid and calling on the International Criminal Court to investigate "systematic discrimination" against Palestinians, becoming the first major international rights NGO to do so. In August 2020, the Chinese government sanctioned HRW executive director Kenneth Roth—along with the heads of four other U.S.-based democracy and human rights organizations and six U.S. Republican lawmakers—for supporting

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1200-506: A result of the Chinese sanctions, with the situation in Hong Kong henceforth to be monitored by HRW's China team. The decision to leave came amid a wider crackdown on civil society groups in Hong Kong. On 8 March 2023, Bahrain canceled two HRW staff members' entry permit visas to attend the 146th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly. The permits were issued on 30 January 2023. Holding a constant observer status with IPU, HRW authorities had

1300-436: A third were guided by radar, forcing the targeted aircraft to jettison fuel tanks and take evasive action. In response, over half of NATO's anti-radiation missiles were pre-emptively fired at suspected air defence sites so that if a radar system did become active the missiles would be able to lock on more quickly. Where possible, Yugoslav air defences attempted to bring NATO aircraft into range of AAA and MANPADS. A common tactic

1400-658: Is a qualified social worker who has worked with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Save the Children , and most recently as director of Amnesty International 's Crisis Response Program. Hassan holds honors degrees in social work and law from Australia and a master's degree in international human rights law from Oxford University . Human Rights watch and Amnesty International are both international non-governmental organizations headquartered in

1500-473: Is attacked. It is unclear whether under the NATO charter force may be used in the absence of such an attack. Article 5 has been interpreted as restricting NATO's use of force to situations where a NATO member has been attacked. It has been argued, therefore, that NATO's actions were in violation of the charter of NATO. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan supported intervention in principle, saying "there are times when

1600-467: Is biased against Israel in its coverage of the Israel–Palestine conflict . In 2014, two Nobel Peace Laureates , Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Mairead Maguire , wrote a letter signed by 100 other human rights activists and scholars criticizing HRW for its revolving-door hiring practices with the U.S. government, its failure to denounce the U.S. practice of extrajudicial rendition , its endorsement of

1700-620: The Los Angeles Times wrote that "an alternative assessment was that NATO’s bombing was largely to blame for the expulsions and killings" of Kosovars as prior to it the Yugoslav Army was "behaving with the brutality typical of security forces". On the 10th anniversary of the bombing campaign, Ian Bancroft wrote in The Guardian : "Though justified by apparently humanitarian considerations, NATO's bombing of Serbia succeeded only in escalating

1800-546: The 2011 NATO intervention in Libya and Serbia's own experience with NATO intervention. The bombing campaign is sometimes referred to as a "humanitarian war" or a case of " humanitarian intervention ". Part of NATO's justification for the bombing was to end the humanitarian crisis involving the large outflow of Kosovar Albanian refugees caused by Yugoslav forces. In April 1999, the development of this humanitarian crisis as well as accusations of genocide were used by policy-makers in

1900-644: The Adriatic Sea . During the ten weeks of the conflict, NATO aircraft flew over 38,000 combat missions. On 24 March at 19:00 UTC NATO started the bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. F/A-18 Hornets of the Spanish Air Force were the first NATO planes to bomb Belgrade and perform SEAD operations. BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from ships and submarines in the Adriatic. In addition to fixed-wing air power, one battalion of Apache helicopters from

2000-578: The BLU-114/B "Soft-Bomb" ), water-processing plants and the state-owned broadcaster. The Dutch foreign minister Jozias van Aartsen said that the strikes on Yugoslavia should be such as to weaken their military capabilities and prevent further humanitarian atrocities. Due to restrictive media laws, media in Yugoslavia carried little coverage of what its forces were doing in Kosovo, or of other countries' attitudes to

2100-664: The Central Intelligence Agency outside the normal NATO targeting regime. The US president Bill Clinton apologised for the bombing, saying it was an accident. The US gave China financial compensation. The bombing strained relations between the People's Republic of China and NATO, provoking angry demonstrations outside Western embassies in Beijing. The victims were Xu Xinghu, his wife Zhu Ying, and Shao Yunhuan. An October 1999 investigation by The Observer and Politiken argued that

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2200-654: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War . The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an agreement was reached that led to the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army from Kosovo, and the establishment of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo , a UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. The official NATO operation code name

2300-563: The Kosovo conflict were stated at the North Atlantic Council meeting held at NATO headquarters in Brussels on 12 April 1999: Operation Allied Force predominantly used a large-scale air campaign to destroy Yugoslav military infrastructure from high altitudes. After the third day of aerial bombing, NATO had destroyed almost all of its strategic military targets in Yugoslavia. Despite this,

2400-753: The Rwandan genocide of 1994, the Democratic Republic of the Congo , and the excessive breadth of U.S. sex offender registries and their application to juveniles. In the summer of 2004, the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University in New York became the depository institution for the Human Rights Watch Archive, an active collection that documents decades of human rights investigations around

2500-615: The UN Security Council for military action, but were opposed by China and Russia, who indicated that they would veto such a measure. As a result, NATO launched its campaign without the UN's approval, stating that it was inter alia a humanitarian intervention . The UN Charter prohibits the use of force except in the case of a decision by the Security Council under Article 42 , under Article 51 or under Article 53 . Three days after

2600-625: The US Army 's 11th Aviation Regiment was deployed to help combat missions. The regiment was augmented by pilots from Fort Bragg 's 82nd Airborne Attack Helicopter Battalion. The battalion secured AH-64 Apache attack helicopter refueling sites, and a small team forward deployed to the Albania – Kosovo border to identify targets for NATO air strikes. The campaign was initially designed to destroy Yugoslav air defences and high-value military targets. NATO military operations increasingly attacked Yugoslav units on

2700-568: 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 . 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

2800-459: The international isolation of Yugoslavia, war crimes , and human rights violations. Critics of the bombing have argued that the campaign violated international law. Some also argued that NATO triggered or accelerated the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo as the violence escalated once the campaign began. The laws of public international law that determine whether launching a war is legally justified are called jus ad bellum . NATO described

2900-654: The Charter prohibits unprovoked attacks only by individual states. The principal legal issue remains, however, since NATO as such is not a member state of the UN, whether the member states of NATO, the United States and the European powers that sent armed forces to attack as part of the NATO bombing campaign, violated the UN Charter by attacking a fellow UN member state: (1) in the absence of UN Security Council authorization, and (2) in

3000-742: The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO by depositing instruments of accession in accordance with Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty at a ceremony in Independence, Missouri . These nations did not participate directly in hostilities. A large element of the operation was the air forces of NATO, relying heavily on the US Air Force and Navy using the F-16, F-15 , F-117 , F-14 , F/A-18 , EA-6B , B-52 , KC-135 , KC-10 , AWACS , and JSTARS from bases throughout Europe and from aircraft carriers in

3100-462: The HRW archive are not open to researchers or to the public, including the records of the meetings of the board of directors, the executive committee, and the various subcommittees, limiting historians' ability to understand the organization's internal decision-making. HRW has been criticized for perceived bias by the national governments it has investigated for human rights abuses. Some sources allege HRW

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3200-562: The Hong Kong pro-democracy movement in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests . The five organizations' leaders saw the sanctioning, whose details were unspecified, as a tit-for-tat measure in response to the earlier U.S. sanctioning of 11 Hong Kong officials. The latter step had in turn been a reaction to the enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law in June. In October 2021, The New York Times reported that HRW left Hong Kong as

3300-639: The Iraqis they took steps to preserve their assets. Prior to the conflict's start Yugoslav SAMs were preemptively dispersed away from their garrisons and practiced emission control to decrease NATO's ability to locate them. The Yugoslav integrated air defence system (IADS) was extensive, including underground command sites and buried landlines, which allowed for information to be shared between systems. Active radar in one area could target NATO aircraft for SAMs and AAA in another area with no active radar, further limiting NATO's ability to target air defence weapons. During

3400-513: The Kosovo War: On 20 March 1999, OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission monitors withdrew from Kosovo citing a "steady deterioration in the security situation", and on 23 March 1999 Richard Holbrooke returned to Brussels and announced that peace talks had failed. Hours before the announcement, Yugoslavia announced on national television it had declared a state of emergency citing an "imminent threat of war ... against Yugoslavia by Nato" and began

3500-469: The Kosovo conflict. On 29 March 1999, to escape possible destruction, Jat Airways evacuated around 30 of its fleet of civilian aircraft from Belgrade to neighbouring countries for safekeeping. An important portion of the war involved combat between the Yugoslav Air Force and the opposing air forces from NATO. United States Air Force F-15s and F-16s flying from Italian airforce bases attacked

3600-518: The Kosovo crisis into a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe"; citing a post-war report released by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe he concluded that it is "widely acknowledged that the bulk of the ethnic cleansing and war crimes occurred after the start of [NATO]'s campaign". Aside from the above-discussed issue of the legal justifiability of launching the war against Yugoslavia,

3700-461: The Middle East and North Africa. After The Intercept reported the donation, it was returned, and HRW issued a statement that accepting it was "deeply regrettable". Legitimacy of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia 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

3800-444: The NATO actions in Kosovo were taken after consultation with all members, were approved by a NATO vote, and were undertaken by several NATO members, NATO contends that its actions were in accordance with its charter. Article 4, however, is silent as to the use of force and does not discuss under what circumstances force may be authorized. Article 5 of NATO's charter calls on NATO members to respond in mutual defense when any NATO member

3900-410: The NATO bombing campaign has been criticized for exceeding the limits of lawful wartime conduct under international humanitarian law , such as the Geneva Conventions . Noam Chomsky was also highly critical of the NATO campaign and its aerial bombing in particular, where public utilities were bombed in addition to military targets. Chomsky argued that the main objective of the NATO intervention

4000-913: The North Atlantic Anglosphere that report on global human rights violations. The major differences lie in the groups' structures and methods for promoting change. Amnesty International is a mass-membership organization. Mobilization of those members is the organization's central advocacy tool. Human Rights Watch's main products are its crisis-directed research and lengthy reports, whereas Amnesty International lobbies and writes detailed reports but also focuses on mass letter-writing campaigns, adopting individuals as " prisoners of conscience " and lobbying for their release. HRW openly lobbies for specific actions for other governments to take against human rights offenders, including naming specific individuals for arrest, or sanctions to be levied against certain countries, such as calling for punitive sanctions against

4100-522: The Prowlers provided radar jamming assistance (though they could carry HARMs as well). Additional support came in the form of Italian and German Tornado ECRs which also carried HARMs. USAF Compass Call EC-130s were used to intercept and jam Yugoslav communications, while RC-135s conducted bomb damage assessment . The standard tactic for F-16CJs was for two pairs to come at a suspected air defence site from opposite directions, ensuring total coverage of

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4200-469: The U.S. 2011 military intervention in Libya , and its silence during the 2004 Haitian coup d'état . In 2020, HRW's board of directors discovered that HRW accepted a $ 470,000 donation from Saudi real estate magnate Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber , owner of a company HRW "had previously identified as complicit in labor rights abuse", under the condition that the donation not be used to support LGBT advocacy in

4300-468: The UN Charter prohibits the use of force by UN member states to resolve disputes, but with two specific exceptions to this general prohibition: NATO did not have the backing of the UN Security Council to use force in Yugoslavia. Further, NATO did not claim that an armed attack occurred against another state. However, its advocates contend that NATO actions were consistent with the UN Charter because

4400-530: The US bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade , killing three Chinese journalists and injuring at least 20. The US defence secretary explained the cause of the error as "because the bombing instructions were based on an outdated map", but the Chinese government did not accept this explanation. The Chinese government issued a statement on the day of the bombing, stating that it was a "barbarian act". The target had been selected by

4500-501: The United Nations reported 850,000 refugees had left Kosovo. Another 230,000 were listed as internally displaced persons (IDPs): driven from their homes, but still inside Kosovo. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping claimed at the time that the refugee crisis was produced by a coordinated Yugoslav plan of ethnic cleansing codenamed " Operation Horseshoe ". The existence and character of such

4600-466: The United Nations. However, the UN policy on military intervention by regional arrangements in UN Article 53 states the Security Council can, where appropriate, "utilize such regional arrangements or agencies for enforcement action under its authority. However, no enforcement action shall be taken under regional arrangements or by regional agencies without the authorization of the Security Council." Because

4700-472: The United States and Europe to legally justify the campaign on the basis of "humanitarian law", allowing for intervention where large scale human rights violations are occurring. Human rights organizations and individuals were divided on the campaign, given that the invocation of human rights and humanitarian law was used to initiate war. Moreover, they expressed doubts about the campaign given that it worsened

4800-560: The Yugoslav army continued to function and to attack Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) insurgents inside Kosovo, mostly in the regions of Northern and Southwest Kosovo. NATO bombed strategic economic and societal targets, such as bridges, military facilities, official government facilities, and factories, using long-range cruise missiles to hit heavily defended targets, such as strategic installations in Belgrade and Pristina . The NATO air forces also targeted infrastructure, such as power plants (using

4900-434: The Yugoslav security forces in addition to between 489 and 528 civilians. It destroyed or damaged bridges, industrial plants, hospitals, schools, cultural monuments, and private businesses, as well as barracks and military installations. In total, between 9 and 11 tonnes of depleted uranium was dropped across all of Yugoslavia. In the days after the Yugoslav army withdrew, over 164,000 Serbs and 24,000 Roma left Kosovo. Many of

5000-460: The absence of an attack or a threat of imminent attack on them. The United Nations considers NATO to be a "regional arrangement" under UN Article 52, which allows it to deal with matters relating to the maintenance of international peace and security as are appropriate for regional action provided that such arrangements or agencies and their activities are consistent with the Purposes and Principles of

5100-455: The affected countries, Americas Watch also examined the role played by foreign governments, particularly the United States government , in providing military and political support to abusive regimes. Asia Watch (1985), Africa Watch (1988) and Middle East Watch (1989) were added to what was known as "The Watch Committees". In 1988, these committees united under one umbrella to form Human Rights Watch. In April 2021, Human Rights Watch released

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5200-596: The basis for drawing international attention to abuses and pressuring governments and international organizations to reform. Researchers conduct fact-finding missions to investigate suspect situations, also using diplomacy, staying in touch with victims, making files about public and individuals, providing required security for them in critical situations, and generating local and international media coverage. Issues HRW raises in its reports include social and gender discrimination , torture , military use of children , political corruption , abuses in criminal justice systems, and

5300-613: The bombing had actually been deliberate as the Embassy was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications, something that NATO, the UK and the USA emphatically denied. In April 2000, The New York Times published its own investigation, claiming to have found "no evidence that the bombing of the embassy had been a deliberate act." Solana directed Clark to "initiate air operations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia". Clark then delegated responsibility for

5400-570: The campaign and gave Yugoslav forces advanced warning of incoming NATO air raids. Kosovo's mountainous terrain also made it difficult for NATO to locate and target Yugoslav air defences, while at the same time the region's poor infrastructure limited where Yugoslav SAM and AAA sites could be placed. Yugoslav air defences were much fewer than what Iraq had deployed during the Gulf War – an estimated 16 SA-3 and 25 SA-6 surface-to-air missile systems, plus numerous anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) and man-portable air defence systems ( MANPADS ) – but unlike

5500-557: The campaign stopped "deliberate, systematic efforts at ..genocide" by arguing that prior to the bombing the Yugoslav Army's "brutal operations" were aimed at rooting out the Kosovo Liberation Army rather than expelling the Albanian population which only occurred afterwards, claiming that "the U.S.-led NATO bombing precipitated the very humanitarian crisis the administration claimed it was intervening to stop". Alexander Cockburn of

5600-573: The capitulation of Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War marked a turning point in the history of warfare. It "proved that a war can be won by air power alone". Diplomacy had failed before the war, and the deployment of a large NATO ground force was still weeks away when Slobodan Milošević agreed to a peace deal. As for why air power should have been capable of acting alone, it has been argued by military analysts that there are several factors required. These normally come together only rarely, but all occurred during

5700-483: The commencement of hostilities, on 26 March 1999, the Security Council rejected the demand of Russia, Belarus and India for the cessation of the use of force against Yugoslavia. By the end of the war, the Yugoslavs had killed 1,500 to 2,131 combatants. 10,317 civilians were killed or missing, with 85% of those being Kosovar Albanian and some 848,000 were expelled from Kosovo. The NATO bombing killed about 1,000 members of

5800-508: The conditions in Kosovo as posing a risk to regional stability. As such, NATO and certain governments asserted they had a legitimate interest in developments in Kosovo, due to their impact on the stability of the whole region which, they claimed, is a legitimate concern of the Organisation. The UN Charter is legally binding on all United Nations member states, including all members of NATO, because they have each signed it. Article 2(4) of

5900-693: The conduct of Operation Allied Force to the Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces Southern Europe, who in turn delegated control to the Commander of Allied Air Forces Southern Europe, Lieutenant-General Michael C. Short, USAF. Operationally, the day-to-day responsibility for executing missions was delegated to the Commander of the 5th Allied Tactical Air Force. The Hague Tribunal ruled that over 700,000 Kosovo Albanians were forcibly displaced by Yugoslav forces into neighbouring Albania and Macedonia , with many thousands internally displaced within Kosovo. By April,

6000-461: The course of the 78-day campaign, but could confirm the destruction of only 3 of the original 25 SA-6 batteries. Over 800 SAMs were fired by Yugoslav forces at NATO aircraft, including 477 SA-6s and 124 confirmed MANPADS, for the downing of only two aircraft and several more damaged. According to a post-conflict US intelligence report, Yugoslav military had a spy in NATO's headquarters in Brussels who in

6100-409: The course of the campaign, NATO and Yugoslav forces engaged in a "cat-and-mouse" game which made suppressing the air defences difficult. Yugoslav SAM operators would turn their radars on for no longer than 20 seconds, allowing little chance for NATO anti-radiation missions to lock on to their emissions. While most Yugoslav SAMs were fired ballistically (with no radar guidance) at NATO aircraft, as many as

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6200-445: The crisis resulted from a policy of ethnic cleansing . Many accounts from both Serbs and Albanians identified Yugoslav security forces and paramilitaries as the culprits, responsible for systematically emptying towns and villages of their Albanian inhabitants by forcing them to flee. Atrocities against civilians in Kosovo were the basis of United Nations war crimes charges against Milošević and other officials responsible for directing

6300-471: The current edition, World Report 2020 , was released in January 2020, and covers events of 2019. World Report 2020 , HRW's 30th annual review of human rights practices around the globe, includes reviews of human rights practices and trends in nearly 100 countries, and an introductory essay by Executive Director Kenneth Roth, "China's Global Threat to Human Rights". HRW has reported extensively on subjects such as

6400-433: The day the bombing started, Russia called for the UN Security Council to meet to consider "an extremely dangerous situation caused by the unilateral military action of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia". However, a draft resolution, tabled jointly by Russia, Belarus and India, to demand "an immediate cessation of the use of force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia"

6500-555: The defending Yugoslav fighters, mainly MiG-29s , which were in poor condition due to a lack of spare parts and maintenance. Other NATO forces also contributed to the air war. Air combat incidents: Suppression of Enemy Air Defences or SEAD operations for NATO were principally carried out by the US Air Force, with fifty F-16CJ Block 50 Fighting Falcons , and the US Navy and Marines, with 30 EA-6B Prowlers . The F-16CJs carried AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missiles which would home in on and destroy any active Yugoslav radar systems, while

6600-485: The distances involved. The F-16CJ Block 50 could not carry the LANTIRN targeting pod, making it unable to conduct precision bombing at night. Moreover, the US Air Force had allowed its electronic warfare branch to atrophy in the years after the Gulf War . Training exercises were fewer and less rigorous than before, while veterans with electronic warfare experience were allowed to retire with no replacement. The results were less than satisfactory: response times to engaging

6700-419: The early part of the conflict leaked flight plans and target details to the Yugoslav military, allowing Yugoslav military assets to move to avoid detection. Once NATO limited the number of people with access to its plans, the effect on "what the Serbs appeared to know" was immediate. The identity and nationality of the suspected 'spy' was not stated. While not directly related to the hostilities, on 12 March 1999

6800-471: The fall of the latter, as Gaddafi maintained a close relationship with Josip Broz Tito . At his 2009 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Gaddafi strongly condemned the intervention in Yugoslavia, along with earlier U.S. interventions in Grenada and Panama . Libya's support for Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s led to many in Serbia supporting the Gaddafi government in during the First Libyan Civil War in 2011, with many Serbs drawing parallels between

6900-421: The first time employed cyberwarfare to target Yugoslav air defence computer systems. A number of deficiencies in NATO's SEAD operations were revealed during the course of the bombing campaign. The EA-6Bs were noticeably slower than other aircraft, limiting their effectiveness in providing support, and land-based Prowlers flying out of Aviano Air Base were forced to carry extra fuel tanks instead of HARMs due to

7000-404: The ground, as well as continuing the strategic bombardment. Montenegro was bombed several times, and NATO refused to prop up the precarious position of its anti-Milošević leader, Milo Đukanović . " Dual-use " targets, used by civilians and military, were attacked, including bridges across the Danube , factories, power stations, telecommunications facilities, the headquarters of Yugoslav Leftists ,

7100-501: The humanitarian crisis; so, few members of the public expected bombing, instead thinking that a diplomatic deal would be made. While according to Noel Malcolm : "During the first few days of the air-strike campaign, while NATO confined itself to the use of cruise missiles and high-altitude bombing, the Serbian forces inside Kosovo embarked on a massive campaign of destruction, burning down houses and using tanks and artillery to reduce entire villages to rubble." According to John Keegan ,

7200-588: The killing of 45 Kosovar Albanians in the Račak massacre was reported in January 1999, NATO decided that the conflict could only be settled by introducing a military peacekeeping force to forcibly restrain the two sides. Yugoslavia refused to sign the Rambouillet Accords , which among other things called for 30,000 NATO peacekeeping troops in Kosovo; an unhindered right of passage for NATO troops on Yugoslav territory; immunity for NATO and its agents to Yugoslav law; and

7300-491: The legalization of abortion . HRW has documented and reported various violations of the laws of war and international humanitarian law , most recently in Yemen. Human Rights Watch also supports writers worldwide who are persecuted for their work and in need of financial assistance. The Hellman/Hammett grants are financed by the estate of the playwright Lillian Hellman in funds set up in her name and that of her longtime companion,

7400-511: The majority of countries it reports on. Cuba , North Korea , Sudan , Iran , Israel , Egypt , the United Arab Emirates , Uzbekistan and Venezuela are among the handful of countries that have blocked HRW staff members' access. HRW's former executive director is Kenneth Roth , who held the position from 1993 to 2022. Roth conducted investigations on abuses in Poland after martial law

7500-414: The maximum four as of 2016. The Better Business Bureau said HRW meets its standards for charity accountability. Some notable current and former staff members of Human Rights Watch: Human Rights Watch publishes reports on many different topics and compiles an annual World Report presenting an overview of the worldwide state of human rights. It has been published by Seven Stories Press since 2006;

7600-616: The novelist Dashiell Hammett . In addition to providing financial assistance, the Hellman/Hammett grants help raise international awareness of activists who have been silenced for speaking out in defence of human rights. Each year, Human Rights Watch presents the Human Rights Defenders Award to activists who demonstrate leadership and courage in defending human rights. The award winners work closely with HRW to investigate and expose human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch

7700-483: The organization has to be seen as more international, less an American organization." He continued, "Human Rights Watch is one of the most effective organizations I support. Human rights underpin our greatest aspirations: they're at the heart of open societies." The donation, the largest in HRW's history, increased its operating staff of 300 by 120 people. Charity Navigator gave HRW a three-star rating for 2018. Its financial rating increased from three stars in 2015 to

7800-561: The press . It seeks to achieve change by publicly pressuring governments and their policymakers to curb human rights abuses, and by convincing more powerful governments to use their influence on governments that violate human rights. Human Rights Watch publishes research reports on violations of international human rights norms as set out by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and what it perceives to be other internationally accepted human-rights norms. These reports are used as

7900-412: The region's democratic transformations in the late 1980s. Americas Watch was founded in 1981 while bloody civil wars engulfed Central America. Relying on extensive on-the-ground fact-finding, Americas Watch not only addressed perceived abuses by government forces but also applied international humanitarian law to investigate and expose war crimes by rebel groups. In addition to raising concerns in

8000-578: The region. Human Rights Watch In 1997, Human Rights Watch shared the Nobel Peace Prize as a founding member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines . It played a leading role in the 2008 treaty banning cluster munitions . HRW's annual expenses totaled $ 50.6 million in 2011, $ 69.2 million in 2014, and $ 75.5 million in 2017. Human Rights Watch was co-founded by Robert L. Bernstein , Jeri Laber , and Aryeh Neier as

8100-471: The remaining non-Albanian civilians (as well as Albanians perceived as collaborators) were victims of abuse which included beatings, abductions, and murders. After Kosovo and other Yugoslav Wars , Serbia became home to the highest number of refugees and IDPs (including Kosovo Serbs) in Europe. The bombing was NATO's second major combat operation, following the 1995 bombing campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina . It

8200-526: The rest of the world. According to a 2008 financial assessment, HRW reports that it does not accept any direct or indirect funding from governments and is financed through contributions from private individuals and foundations. Financier George Soros of the Open Society Foundations announced in 2010 his intention to grant US$ 100 million to HRW over ten years to help it expand its efforts internationally: "to be more effective", he said, "I think

8300-550: The right to use local roads, ports, railways, and airports without payment and requisition public facilities for its use free of cost. NATO then prepared to install the peacekeepers by force, using this refusal to justify the bombings. In its Statement Issued at the Extraordinary Ministerial Meeting of the North Atlantic Council held at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, on 12th April 1999 three weeks after

8400-514: The scene shortly after the bombing. The Yugoslav government insisted that NATO had targeted civilians. On 23 April, NATO bombed the Radio Television of Serbia headquarters killing sixteen civilian employees. This was labeled as a war crime by Amnesty International . NATO claimed that the bombing was justified because the station operated as a propaganda tool for the Milošević regime. On 7 May,

8500-405: The start of hostilities on 23 March 1999, the collective said that "The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) has repeatedly violated United Nations Security Council resolutions. The unrestrained assault by Yugoslav military, police and paramilitary forces, under the direction of President Milosevic, on Kosovar civilians has created a massive humanitarian catastrophe which also threatens to destabilise

8600-466: The surrounding region. Hundreds of thousands of people have been expelled ruthlessly from Kosovo by the FRY authorities. We condemn these appalling violations of human rights and the indiscriminate use of force by the Yugoslav government. These extreme and criminally irresponsible policies, which cannot be defended on any grounds, have made necessary and justify the military action by NATO." NATO 's objectives in

8700-491: The target area, and relaying information to incoming strike craft so they could adjust their flight path accordingly. Where possible, NATO attempted to proactively destroy air defence sites, using F-16CGs and F-15E Strike Eagles carrying conventional munitions including cluster bombs , AGM-130 boosted bombs, and AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon missiles. Many NATO aircraft made use of new towed decoys designed to lure away any missiles fired at them. Reportedly, NATO also for

8800-752: The top leaders in Sudan who oversaw a killing campaign in Darfur . The group also called for human rights activists who had been detained in Sudan to be released. HRW's documentations of human rights abuses often include extensive analyses of conflicts' political and historical backgrounds, some of which have been published in academic journals. AI's reports, on the other hand, tend to contain less analysis, instead focusing on specific abuses of rights. In 2010, Jonathan Foreman wrote that HRW had "all but eclipsed" Amnesty International. According to Foreman, instead of being supported by

8900-444: The train had been traveling too fast and the bomb was too close to the target for it to divert in time. The German daily Frankfurter Rundschau reported in January 2000 that the NATO video had been shown at three times its real speed, giving a misleading impression of the train's speed. On 14 April, NATO planes bombed ethnic Albanians near Koriša who had been used by Yugoslav forces as human shields. Yugoslav troops took TV crews to

9000-518: The use of force may be legitimate in the pursuit of peace", but was critical of unilateral action by NATO. He argued "under the [UN] Charter the Security Council has primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security - and this is explicitly acknowledged in the North Atlantic Treaty. Therefore, the Council should be involved in any decision to resort to the use of force." On

9100-576: The violence against Kosovar Albanians. Critics of the campaign have employed the term "humanitarian bombing" in an ironic manner to demonstrate their derision. Some journalists have argued that the humanitarian situation worsened after the bombing campaign was launched, thereby questioning the stated objective as laid out by NATO. Writing for the Washington Post , Christopher Layne and Benjamin Schwartz opined on U.S. President Bill Clinton 's claim that

9200-628: The war ended with the Kumanovo Treaty and the bombing stopped, some argued that the creation on 10 June 1999 of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), by Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999), constituted a legal ratification post festum (after the event). One of the few countries to support the Yugoslav government fully during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was that of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi . This friendship between Libya and Yugoslavia dates back to before

9300-706: The world. The archive was transferred from the Norlin Library at the University of Colorado, Boulder . It includes administrative files, public relations documents, and case and country files. With some exceptions for security considerations, the Columbia University community and the public have access to field notes, taped and transcribed interviews with alleged victims of human rights violations, video and audiotapes, and other materials documenting HRW's activities since its founding in 1978 as Helsinki Watch. Some parts of

9400-400: Was Operation Allied Force ( Serbian : Савезничка сила / Saveznička sila ) whereas the United States called it Operation Noble Anvil ( Serbian : Племенити наковањ / Plemeniti nakovanj ); in Yugoslavia the operation was incorrectly called Merciful Angel ( Serbian : Милосрдни анђео / Milosrdni anđeo ), possibly as a result of a misunderstanding or mistranslation. NATO's intervention

9500-459: Was declared 1981. He later focused on Haiti , which had just emerged from the Duvalier dictatorship but continued to be plagued with problems. Roth's awareness of the importance of human rights began with stories his father had told about escaping Nazi Germany in 1938. He graduated from Yale Law School and Brown University . Tirana Hassan became the group's executive director in 2023. Hassan

9600-432: Was defeated. Among the 15 UN Security Council nations, there were three votes in favour (Russia, China and Namibia) and twelve against, with no abstentions. Argentina , Bahrain , Brazil , Gabon , Gambia , Malaysia , and Slovenia , along with the US, Britain, France, Canada, and Netherlands voted against it. Rejection of Russia's condemnation amounted to political, but not legal, support of NATO's intervention. After

9700-648: Was one of six international NGOs that founded the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers in 1998. It is also the co-chair of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines , a global coalition of civil society groups that successfully lobbied to introduce the Ottawa Treaty , which prohibits the use of anti-personnel landmines. Human Rights Watch is a founding member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange ,

9800-543: Was prompted by Yugoslavia's bloodshed and ethnic cleansing of Albanians, which drove the Albanians into neighbouring countries and had the potential to destabilize the region. Yugoslavia's actions had already provoked condemnation by international organisations and agencies such as the UN, NATO , and various INGOs . Yugoslavia's refusal to sign the Rambouillet Accords was initially offered as justification for NATO's use of force. NATO countries attempted to gain authorisation from

9900-535: Was the first time that NATO had used military force without the expressed endorsement of the UN Security Council and thus, international legal approval, which triggered debates over the legitimacy of the intervention . A NATO -facilitated ceasefire between the KLA and Yugoslav forces was signed on 15 October 1998, but both sides broke it two months later and fighting resumed. UN Security Council resolution 1160 , resolution 1199 and resolution 1203 had been disregarded. When

10000-464: Was to target the last aircraft in a departing formation, on the assumption that it received less protection, was flown by a less-experienced pilot, and/or was low on fuel needed to make evasive manoeuvres. However, because AAA were limited to deploying close to roads for mobility and became bogged down in difficult terrain, NATO pilots learned to avoid these by staying at least five kilometers away from roads, never flying along them and only crossing them at

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