Kosovo’s independence is legal, UN court rules

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

Kosovo’s independence is legal, UN court rules

 

Decision in favour of Kosovo’s independence could have far-reaching implications for other separatist movements

 

HAGUE (Somalilandpress) — Kosovo‘s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia in February 2008 did not violate international law, the international court of justice (ICJ) said today in a groundbreaking ruling that could have far-reaching implications for separatist movements around the world, as well as for Belgrade’s stalled EU membership talks.

 

The long-awaited ruling – which the court took up after a complaint to the UN from Serbia – is now likely to lead to more countries recognising Kosovo’s independence and move Pristina closer to entry into the UN. At present, Kosovo’s statehood is backed by 69 countries but it requires more than 100 before it can join the UN.

 

Announcing the decision, the court of justice president, Hisashi Owada, said international law contains no “prohibition on declarations of independence”.

 

Although both Belgrade and Pristina had said they were confident of a ruling in their favour, speculation began to emerge a few hours before today’s announcement in the Hague that the decision – which is not legally binding – had gone Kosovo’s way.

 

Prior to the judgment, the US vice-president, Joe Biden, had made it clear that the US would not contemplate a retreat from Kosovo’s newly independent status.

 

Key considerations that the UN’s top court examined – arising out of dozens of submissions by UN member states as well as by Kosovo’s own leadership – have focused on issues of sovereignty, the slim volume of precedent in international law, and how formerly large states such as the USSR broke up along administrative borders.

 

Serbia has continued to demand Kosovo be returned, arguing it has been the cradle of their civilisation and national identity since 1389, when a Christian army led by Serbian prince Lazar lost an epic battle to invading Ottoman forces.

 

The ruling is expected to have profound ramifications on the wider international stage, bolstering demands for recognition by territories as diverse as Northern Cyprus, Somaliland, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transnistria.

 

The ICJ’s ruling is not, however, expected to have an immediate impact on the situation on the ground in Kosovo, where a small area with a Serb majority has itself split away around the north of the town of Mitrovica, which has about 100,000 residents. That deadlock has sometimes erupted into violence, despite intense international efforts, with Serbs and Kosovans running their own areas.

 

Kosovo sparked sharp debate worldwide when it seceded from Serbia in 2008, following the bloody 1998-99 war and almost a decade of international administration. The 1998-99 war, triggered by a brutal crackdown by Serb forces against Kosovo’s separatist ethnic Albanians, left about 10,000 ethnic Albanians dead before ending after a 78-day Nato bombing campaign. Hundreds of Serbs were also killed in retaliatory attacks.

 

Today’s ruling will reinforce Kosovo’s resistance to any kind of renegotiation – particularly over the status of the Serb majority areas in the north.

 

Kosovo’s foreign minister, Skender Hyseni, said before the ruling that reopening negotiations was “inconceivable”.

 

Speaking yesterday, the Serbian foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, had warned that even in the event of a ruling against it, Belgrade would not be ready to give up its claim on Kosovo.

 

“Serbia will not change its position regarding Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence and necessity of a compromise,” he said. “Our fight for such a solution will probably be long and difficult, but we will not give up.”

 

Jeremic, who was in The Hague for the ruling, had said earlier that he expected the decision to vindicate Serbia, which would lead to new negotiations on both sides.

 

A US state department legal adviser, Harold Koh, said: “Serbia seeks an opinion by this court that would turn back time … [and] undermine the progress and stability that Kosovo’s declaration has brought to the region.”Leading the other side of the argument is Serbia’s traditional ally Russia, which has fought against its own separatist movement in Chechnya. Moscow has demanded Kosovo’s independence be annulled, and last year was joined in its opposition by Spain and China, each also facing major secessionist movements.

 

Photo: Albanians ride past a banner that reads “Free Kosovo” in Tirana (Hektor Pustina/AP).

 

By Peter Beaumont

 

Source: The Guardian | Thursday, 22 July 2010

[Haatu]

Now Serbia will abandon its quest of European membership and start to head East.

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

The Russians will welcome them with open arms

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

The end of the battle for Kosovo

Written by UTV News

Jul 22, 2010 at 03:37 PM

Separatists, secessionists and splittists from Taiwan, Xinjiang and Somaliland to Sri Lanka, Georgia and the West Country will welcome today's precedent-setting legal opinion from the UN's international court of justice effectively upholding Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia.

 

With hindsight it seems clear the 1990 reunification of Germany ran contrary to modern history's tide, marking a sort of last stand for the old 19th-century model of the unitary nation state. Since the Berlin wall came down and the Soviet Union disintegrated two years later, things everywhere have been falling apart.

 

Fractious minority movements seeking recognition, autonomous rights, or outright independence since the cold war's end loosened the global geostrategic straitjacket have become commonplace across Europe. Spain frets about its Basques and Catalans, the unifying impact of its World Cup success notwithstanding. Italy's Germans often give cause for concern.

 

The United Kingdom may prospectively be obliged to change its name, should breakaway Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties have their way. Some speak passionately of independence for the ancient kingdom of Kernow, otherwise known as Cornwall. And if it's Kernow redux, then why not Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex, too? In Wiltshire they await a new Arthur.

 

The accelerating trend towards the assertion of minority national, basically tribal rights, usually defined in terms of sovereign territory, delineated borders, ethnicity, language and history, appears global in nature. Vuk Jeremic, Serbia's foreign minister, who led opposition to Kosovo's UDI, suggested the fracturing of the nation state paradigm, like cracks in glass plate, could spread widely and do great damage.

 

Speaking before Kosovo's formal 2008 break with Serbia, Jeremic looked beyond the Balkans to countries such as Sudan, a country that is likely to break in half this winter. In Africa, he said, "there are about 50 Kosovos waiting to happen". International acceptance of Kosovo's unilateral act "would be a very dangerous signal, a signal that there are no rules. Serbia wants to play by the rules. You just can't come along and say they don't matter any more." Boris Tadic, Serbia's president, revisited this argument this week. A ruling favouring Kosovo "would destabilise many regions of the world", he said.

 

Now that Serbia's worst fears have been realised, it remains to be seen whether such dire predictions prove accurate. More prosaically, the world court's delayed advisory opinion hardly came as a surprise and must now be managed politically if new strife, most possibly in ethnically mixed northern Kosovo, is to be avoided. In the end the ruling was more a matter of hard-headed realpolitik than carefully appraised international law.

 

The US, Kosovo's principal sponsor, was adamant all along the court's opinion would have little practical impact, a view echoed by Tony Blair, Kosovo's self-styled liberator, during a visit this week. Joe Biden, the US vice-president, also emphasised that independence was a done deal while affording Kosovan prime minister Hashim Thaci the Washington red carpet treatment on Wednesday.

 

Independence was not primarily a matter of law, a White House spokesman said. "We do not believe that declarations of independence are legal acts whose legality is affirmed or denied by this international court. They are political facts that have to be established through political realities." The US has its own experience in this department. In 1776, American independence came at the muzzle of a musket, not in the form of a lawsuit against George III.

 

Despite their protestations, and they will be long and angry, Serbia and its main backer, Russia, half expected this outcome. Their best course now may be to turn it to their maximum advantage rather than play a spoiler's game at the UN general assembly (which must endorse the ruling). One obvious approach is to accept the EU's proposed technical talks on creating a pragmatic modus vivendi between Belgrade and Pristina while seeking support, as a tacit quid pro quo, for a renewed effort to advance Serbia's EU membership bid.

 

The US may think it's got ahead. But Russia could win both ways, not least in terms of its Georgia intervention. The court's failure to oppose Kosovo's secession "would automatically weaken the west's case against the recognition of [the independence of] Abkhazia and South Ossetia by Russia," said Petr Iskenderov of the Russian Academy of Science in International Affairs magazine. Moscow could also use the decision to push for an "overhaul" of the international community's approach to frozen disputes in the Balkan and Caspian regions that affect its interests, such as that between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the breakaway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, he said.

 

Serbia now faces the prospect of increased international recognition of Kosovo, the country's prospective membership of the UN, and the permanent loss of a territory its regards as a defining part of its sovereignty and history. At the same time, the gates to Europe swing open. It is a bitter pill to swallow. It could trigger domestic political upheavals. But when the dust settles, common sense and self-interest may dictate acceptance of the outcome. Like the Battle of Kosovo Field in 1389 that was so critical to Serbia's identity, the modern day battle for Kosovo is lost.

 

 

 

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2010

[Haatu]

Don't even bother compare the Somalia-Somaliland issue with the Kosovo-Serbia issue.

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

This topic is about the newly independent recognized country called Kosovo stay with the topic my friend

[Haatu]

^ Meeshaad ula wadey baan fahmey.

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

meeshan kaliya eeh aan wax u waday waxay ahayd maxkamada aduunka oo shariciiyesey Jiritaanka dalka kosovo. Adigu halkeed wax u wada?

[Haatu]

Tabtii aad u wadey.

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

dee kosovo wa dal anu u walaalo nahay oo muslim ah

[RedSea]

^Good point, Xaaji. Waa walalaheen and it's great that they have now a country of their own.

[Saalax]

Kosovo deserved it.

[Liibaan]

Kosovo and Palestine deserve recognition, because they have the support of muslim ummah, the majority of muslim countries long ago recognized Palestine and Kosovo

 

Yes our muslim brothers in Kosovo and Palestine deserve recognition and help

 

But the anti-somali and anti-muslim somalidiidland doesn't deserve recognition, (snm is pro-isreal and pro-habashi)

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

But the anti-somali and anti-muslim somalidiidland doesn't deserve recognition, (snm is pro-isreal and pro-habashi)