According to Seybolt, in March 1999, NATO launched Operation Allied Forces, which was a coercive bombing campaign over Kosovo and the rest of Serbia1. The purpose of the massive seventy-eight day bombing campaign was to force the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to end its repression of the predominantly ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo and to accept NATO terms for the resolution of the future political status of the Kosovo. The concept of humanitarian intervention is highly contested. but it is defined by Wise as the threat or use of force across state borders by a state (or group of states) aimed at preventing widespread and serious violations of the fundamental human rights of individuals other than its own citizens, without the permission of the state in whose territory the force is applied. In legal terms, NATO, as a regional agreement, can intervene in compliance with international peace and security, provided that the actions taken are consistent with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter2, this is in accordance with Article 53 of the Charter of the United Nations. The United Nations Charter prescribes the conditions that states must meet when it comes to military interventions. As states state in the UN Charter, Article 2(4) outlines general prohibitions on the use of force. It provides that all member States shall refrain from threatening the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations. The Charter also outlines exceptions to Article 2(4): force used in self-defense must be an armed attack; Security Council Enforcement Actions Under Chapter VII - The Security Council is authorized under Article 39 to determine the existence of any... half of paper... experts agree that air strikes against Kosovo by NATO were illegal because they were never authorized by the Security Council. However, libertarian experts cite international humanitarian law to justify NATO's actions. For example, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stated that NATO is justified and its actions are legitimate and that a new form of intervention is emerging – for cases involving the repression of minorities it will and must have precedence over other concerns of states law. Therefore any violation of humanitarian law, be it crimes against humanity, human rights violations in the Geneva Convention or ethnic cleansing, can provide a legitimate basis for action by the international community because all of these have international consequences and are fine beyond sacred principles of the internal jurisdiction of the State.8