LONDON -- U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has rightly drawn attention to the "need for timely intervention by the international community when death and suffering are being inflicted on large numbers of people, and when the state nominally in charge is unable or unwilling to stop it." He has pointed out that in Kosovo, Rwanda and East Timor "the international community stands accused of doing too little, too late." Intervention, he has asserted, "must be based on legitimate and universal principles." He added that "state sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined. . . . At the same time individual sovereignty -- by which I mean the fundamental freedom of each individual, enshrined in the charter of the United Nations and subsequent international treaties -- has been enhanced by a renewed and spreading consciousness of human rights." And he has called for a redefinition of national interests "which would induce states to find greater unity in the pursuit of common goals and values."

Few would disagree with these sentiments. The problem is how to translate them into an agreed basis for action. Annan was critical of NATO for having intervened in Kosovo without obtaining the prior approval of the Security Council, but while Russia and China were prepared to veto the U.N. action against Serbia, the international community was forced to stand aside and watch the obscene "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo by Serb forces. Public opinion in Western Europe and North America would not tolerate this. Unfortunately NATO intervention through aerial bombardment did not work quickly enough and huge numbers of Albanians were forced to flee from their homes and some appalling atrocities were committed. It is wholly understandable that people in NATO countries were most reluctant to send troops to fight in Kosovo, far from home, where there was no obvious national interest at stake.

Annan is right to call on the nations of the world to recognize that the interests of humanity generally form part of all our national interests. If NATO countries had been prepared to make it clear to Serbia at the outset that NATO forces would, if necessary, be prepared to fight a land battle, much suffering might have been averted, but it is easy to understand why it did not happen that way.