The UK Press on the Kosovo Independence Judgement‏

The Times
23 July 2010
Independent Judgement
The ICJ ruling that Kosovo’s secession was not illegal is wise and
timely

The parliament in Kosovo voted to declare independence from Serbian
in 2008. This unilateral session was fiercely opposed by Serbia and its
ally Russia, on the found that it violated Serbia’s territorial integrity. But
in a non-binding ruling yesterday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
at the Hague rejected Serbia’s claim that the Kosovo’s declaration was
illegal.

This is a sensible and careful judgement. Nations with secessionist
challenges of their own may worry that it sets a precedent for the
erosion of national sovereignty, but those fears would be misguided.
Kosovo’s vote for independence stemmed from clear injustice and
mistreatment. So far from inflaming division, the ICJ ruling offers hope
that the hostilities exemplified in the Kosovo was of 1999 will find eventual
dissolution within the family of European nations.

The ruling, arrived at by majority decision of the 14 justices, is an
advisory opinion. It was requested by a vote of the UN General
Assembly in October 2008, eight months after Kosovo’s declaration of
independence. No UN member is compelled to accept the decision,
and Kosovo’s case is unlike any other. But the exemplary
thoroughness of the ICJ investigation and the thoughtfulness of its
conclusion can only help the resolution of other ethnic conflicts.

Kosovo’s independence was driven by a terrible recent history whose
author was Slobodan Milosevic. As Serbian President in 1989, Milosevic
stripped the province of Kosovo of its autonomy. He thereby denied
Kosovo the status within the Yugoslav Federation that it had been
assured under the 1974 Constitution.

Milosevic’s actions were consistent with his xenophobic and destructive
appeals to Serb nationalism. They were utterly rejected by other
nationalities within the Yugoslav Federation. An opinion poll in 1995
found that almost literally every Kosovan Albanian supported separation
from Serbia with 43 per cent favouring union with Albania and 57 per
cent supporting independence.

Milosevic responded with violence. Serb paramilitaries committed
atrocities against civilians. At least 300,000 Kosovan Albanians fled or
were driven from their homes NATO’s intervention, while hesitant and
clumsy, ensured that those who fled did not end up as permanent
refugees or in mass graves. Kosovo’s declaration of independence
nearly a decade later reflected exhaustion at the abortive efforts to
achieve a negotiated agreement over the province’s status. It was
neither provocative nor precipitate. Its independence has since been
recognised by 69 of the UN’s 192 member states, including the US
and the UK. More will certainly now do so.

Russia has threatened to meet Western recognition of Kosovo’s
independence with renewed demands for the secession of the South
Ossetian and Abkhazian enclaves of Georgia. So it may, but its
analogy is far from obvious. Kosovo was a constituent of the former
Yugoslavia, which ceased to exist owing to Milosevic’s aggression.
With a population of 1.8 million, it is larger than some existing EU
member states. Western support for Kosovo underlines the
sensitivity of free nations to demands for self-determination.
The proper relationship between Serbia and Kosovo transcends the
recent conflict, and looks to the eventual accession of both nations
to the EU. The ICJ ruling helps to bring the prospect closer.

[note: can anyone resolve the contradiction in the first pair of sentences
emboldened in red? Why is Kosovo so self-contained and unique? If so, how
can this case help others who democratically wish to self-determine? Why is the
West so selectively sensitive to self-determination in the second sentence in red?
Is this God-forbid being politically cynical?]


The Guardian Kosovo: A chip off the old bloc
This ruling will do nothing to reassure other countries facing
separatist disputes
Friday 23 July 2010


The ruling of the international court of justice yesterday that Kosovo did
not violate international law by declaring its independence from Serbia
over two years ago will do nothing to reassure other countries facing
separatist disputes. Nor will it prevent territories as far-flung (with
cases as diverse) as Northern Cyprus, Somaliland, Nagorno
-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transnistria from seeking
the same recognition.

The judgment is non-binding, and the court did not say that
Kosovo's independence was legal – merely that its declaration of
independence was not illegal, which is not the same thing. China
and Russia will continue to lead a bloc of countries who refuse to legitimise
an act of secession; and in reality very little will change. However, as a
precedent, this is not a good one. Other states that have had bits chipped
off them, like Georgia or Moldova, would be right to be worried by this,
because the practical effect of this ruling is that might is right. If you have
America or Russia behind a part of your state that wants to break free,
recognition will happen. Legitimacy is bestowed by force.

Nor will the decision do anything to calm local tensions, at least in the
short term. What all states that are mutually blind to each other need is to
establish a working relationship. China and Taiwan today and the Federal
Republic of Germany and the GDR before reunification are examples of
hostile states which established a modus vivendi. That too is needed
between Kosovo and Serbia over the Serb enclave north of the town of
Mitrovica, a small area which has frequently erupted into violence. This
ruling will reinforce Kosovo's resistance to any kind of negotiation over
Mitrovica North's status, which Kosovo's foreign minister Skender Hyseni
called inconceivable. Whatever they are called – negotiations or technical
talks – a special status for this enclave will have to be hammered out if
peace is to be restored.

Serbia and Russia rejected yesterday's ruling from the ICJ. The former
said it would continue to preserve its territorial integrity, while the latter
insisted the decision did not provide a legal basis for independence.
However, time has moved on for both countries. An entrenchment of
Serbian claims on Kosovo would conflict with its ambitions for EU
membership. Belgrade need not recognise Kosovo to do a deal on
Mitrovica North in which it would act as a guarantor of the enclave's
autonomy, but its leaders need to summon the political courage to do
this. Similarly Russia – after the global financial crisis and with oil prices
depressed – is no longer as interested as it was in pursuing a policy of
divide and rule with western Europe. It has more to gain out of resetting
relations with it.

FT
Kosovo ruling seen as boon to separatists
By Neil MacDonald in Belgrade, James Blitz in London and Michael
Steen in Amsterdam
Published: July 22 2010 16:09
| Last updated: July 22 2010 21:48

Kosovo on Thursday won a significant victory in its bid to be recognised as
an independent state at the United Nations when the International Court of
Justice ruled that its 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia did not
violate international law.

In a landmark judgment that may have implications for separatist
movements across the globe, the ICJ delivered a ruling that amounts to a
major blow for Serbia, which has been resisting Kosovar independence for
a decade.

In a 10-4 vote by judges meeting in The Hague, the ICJ said international law
contained “no ... prohibition of declarations of independence’’ and therefore
Kosovo’s declaration “did not violate general international law”.

News of the court’s decision prompted celebrations in the Kosovo capital,
Pristina, where people drove through the streets waving Kosovo, US and
British flags and shouting “USA, USA!”

The US was quick to urge that Serbia and Kosovo set aside their differences
and move forward. The Obama administration and its allies are hoping the
judgment will now encourage more states to recognise Kosovo, which
currently has diplomatic relations with 69 countries, and needs a total
of 100 to be recognised at the UN.

“We call on all states to move beyond the issue of Kosovo’s status and
engage constructively in support of peace and stability in the Balkans, and
we call on those states that have not yet done so to recognise Kosovo,” said
Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state.

Kosovo was quick to declare that the ruling would compel Serbia to deal with
it as a sovereign state. “I expect Serbia to turn and come to us, to talk with us
on so many issues of mutual interest, of mutual importance,” said Skender
Hyseni, foreign minister. “But such talks can only take place as talks
between sovereign states.”

However, Serbia expressed disappointment about the judgment. “Serbia will
never recognise the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo,” the
country’s president, Boris Tadic, told reporters. “The government will now
consider further steps”.

Thursday’s judgment was an important moment in Kosovo’s bid for
independence. In 1999, Serbia lost control over Kosovo when a Nato
campaign ended a two-year war between Serbia and ethnic Kosovo
Albanians, and put in place a UN administration and a Nato-monitored
ceasefire. In 2008, Kosovo declared independence, and was immediately
recognised by the US and most other western states. But Serbia rejected
this, as did its ally Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
Others – such as Spain and China – have also been opposed to
recognition on the grounds that it will legitimise an act of secession,
with implications for ethnic minority issues within their own states.

Western diplomats say the latest decision has significance on many fronts,
not least whether Serbia can move towards membership of the European
Union.

“The Serbians have always been negative about Kosovo’s declaration of
independence and that won’t change,” said an EU diplomat. “The question
now is whether Serbia will continue to wage that battle at all costs; or
whether it will tone down its hostility and engage in the kind of practical
co-operation that should lead to EU membership.”

The other major implication is the message it may send to secessionist
movements around the world. According to Edwin Bakker of the
Clingendael Institute of International Relations in the Netherlands,
Thursday’s ruling is significant because it blesses an act of secession
of a kind not seen in almost 40 years.

“For the first time since the break-up of Pakistan in the mid-1970s, we are
seeing a country becoming independent, despite the strong opposition of the
state from which it is separating,” he says. “This ruling will strengthen
separatists around the globe. Cases that have been confronted with very brutal
repression may feel that their chances for an independent state have increased.”
Mr Bakker argued that separatist movements comparable to the Kosovo case
are limited. He suggested that the ruling would boost radical separatist elements
in the Basque country in Spain, and in Cyprus

[why not Karabagh?]