Serbia has formed an international legal team to file charges against NATO for using depleted uranium munitions during the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia.

The legal team, proposed bythe Serbian Royal Academy ofScientists and Artists, will bring together the best lawyers fromSerbia and also fromGermany, France, Italy, Russia, China, Britain and Turkey.

In March 1999, NATO launched a series ofairstrikes againstFederal Yugoslavia.

The aerial campaign and also NATOs military intervention inKosovo were not authorized bythe UN Security Council and, therefore, violated international law.

In an interview withRadio Sputnik, Vice President ofthe International Association ofRussian-Speaking Lawyers, Mikhail Ioffe, said that Serbia should have filed the lawsuits immediately afterthe 1999 bombings.

From a legal standpoint, they should have brought the charges when the damage [caused bythe airstrikes] was there foreveryone tosee, not now that its traces are no longer evident. Still, the damage they caused tothe peoples health is hard tomiss, Ioffe said.

He described the idea ofsuing NATO forthe 1999 airstrikes as viable.

Mikhail Ioffe also mentioned a number oflegal problems that would prove hard toresolve.

The question is whether the US will respond tothese charges or not. The other countries could likewise want toshirk responsibility forwhat they did. The biggest hurdle is that [the 1999 bombings] have not been recognized asan international aggression byany authoritative international body, the lawyer stated.

The UN refused toauthorize them, neither did they term the actions bythe US and its coalition partners asan act ofaggression. I guess this could be a matter forsome backdoor diplomatic bargaining Serbia could benefit from, Mikhail Ioffe concluded.

NATO launched air strikes inSerbia onMarch 24, 1999, withoutthe backing ofthe UN Security Council.

Codenamed Operation Allied Force, it was the largest attack ever undertaken bythe alliance and the first time that NATO used military force withoutthe approval ofthe UN Security Council and againsta sovereign nation that did not pose a real threat toany member ofthe alliance.

In the course ofthe campaign, NATO launched 2,300 missiles atalmost 1,000 targets and dropped 14,000 bombs, including depleted uranium bombs and cluster munitions.

More than2,000 civilians were killed, including 88 children, and thousands more were injured. Over 200,000 ethnic Serbs were forced toleave their homeland inKosovo.

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Serbia to Sue NATO for 1999 Bombings Using Depleted Uranium Ammunition? - Center for Research on Globalization