The Kosovo conflict places international lawyers in the dilemma of choosing between the prohibitions on the use of force and the imperative to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in the face of massive human rights violations. Thus, the conflict qualifies as a hard case under international law which may nevertheless stimulate the development of new legal rules. The aim of this volume is to bring together materials of different origins in order to document the various legal aspects of this crisis.

When using the volume, the following points should be noted. The documents are ordered by subject, as shown in the table of contents. To make individual documents easier to find, a chronological list is provided in the last part of the volume, along with an index. The volume also contains a chronology and a select bibliography. The general introduction provides an overview of the main legal questions arising from the conflict, while the introductions to the chapters place the documents in their historical and political context.

Official texts are reproduced without alteration. Only evident typographical errors have been corrected. In the document headings author, title, source, and date of the document are shown. In some cases source references are made in footnotes to the heading. Comments by the editor in the text or in the footnotes are printed in italics.