Abstract
Kosovo has experienced several rounds of contested statehood. The first began in 1991 when the territory seceded from Yugoslavia (effectively Serbia) and declared unilateral independence. Not a single state recognized its purported statehood. In 1999, after NATO’s war against Yugoslavia, Kosovo became a ward of the international community. This heralded a new period of international contestation over Kosovo’s political fate as its final status was being negotiated by interested parties. Then came Kosovo’s second unilateral declaration of independence in February 2008. Although over 40 states including major Western powers had formally recognized its statehood within three months, Kosovo’s right of independence has remained contentious — albeit far less so than in the 1990s. Its current spell of self-proclaimed independence admittedly fails to meet our requirement of at least three years’ duration, but when Kosovo’s earlier experience of life in international limbo is added its inclusion in this inquiry seems justified.
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Notes
Dick Leurdijk & Dick Zandee, Kosovo: From Crisis to Crisis, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2001, pp.3–7.
Also see Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History, Macmillan, London, 1998.
Dick Leurdijk & Dick Zandee, pp.10–12; AW Palmer, A Dictionary of Modern History, 1789–1945, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1972, p.296;
The Independent International Commission on Kosovo, The Kosovo Report: Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000, p.33.
Julie A Mertus, Kosovo: How Myths and Truths started a War, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1999, pp.285–6; Dick Leurdijk & Dick Zandee, pp.13–14.
The Independent International Commission on Kosovo, pp.36–7; Peter Radan, The Break-Up of Yugoslavia and International Law, Routledge, London, 2002, pp.196–7.
Joyce P Kaufman, ‘The politics of negotiation: A comparative study of Dayton and Rambouillet’, in Howard M Hensel (ed.), Sovereignty and the Global Community: The Quest for Order in the International System, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2004, p.138.
Dick Leurdijk & Dick Zandee, p.19; Juliane Kokott, ‘Human rights situation in Kosovo 1989–1999’, in Christian Tomuschat (ed.), Kosovo and the International Community: A Legal Assessment, Kluwer Law International, The Hague, 2002, p.5; Julie A Mertus, p.297.
Dick Leurdijk & Dick Zandee, pp.20–1; Shkëlzen Maliqi, Kosova: Separate Worlds, MM Society, Pristina, 1998, p. 184;
Michael Waller et al (eds), Kosovo: The Politics of Delusion, Frank Cass, London, 2001, p.174;
Miranda Vickers, Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo, Hurst & Co, London, 1998, p.261.
United Kingdom, Department for International Development, ‘Kosovo’, December 2007, http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/kosovo-factsheet.pdf;
The World Bank, ‘Kosovo: Country Brief 2006’, September 2006, http://web.world-bank.org…
European Commission, Economic and Financial Affairs, ‘Kosovo: An economy on hold’, Issue 8, October 2007, http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/een/008/article_6170_en.htm.
Alex J Bellamy, Kosovo and International Society, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2002, p.26.
On the legality and legitimacy of NATO’s air campaign, see The Independent International Commission on Kosovo, pp.4–5, and Ivo H Daalder & Michael E O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo, Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 2000.
The Europa World Year Book 2006, p.3822; Tonny B Knudsen & Carsten C Laustsen, ‘The politics of international trusteeship’, in Knudsen & Laustsen (eds), Kosovo between War and Peace: Nationalism, Peacebuilding and International Trusteeship, Routledge, London, 2006, p.13.
Lene M Søbjerg, pp.66–7; Iain King & Whit Mason, Peace at any Price: How the World failed Kosovo, Hurst & Co, London, 2006, pp.270–4; The Europa World Year Book 2006, p.3823.
See, for instance, Iain King & Whit Mason; Richard Caplan, International Governance of War-Torn Territories: Rule and Reconstruction, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005; Michael Bothe & Thilo Marauhn, pp.217–42.
Kosovo Countdown, p.1; European Forum, ‘UN envoy Ahtisaari presents “compromise” proposal on Kosovo’, 2 February 2007, http://www.europeanforum.net/news/340.
ICG, ‘Serbia: “Double trouble”’, 14 November 2007, http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5167&1=1.
BBCNEWS, ‘Full text: Kosovo declaration’, 17 February 2008, http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk…
‘Who recognized Kosovo as an independent state?’ 15 June 2008, http://www.kosovothanksyou.com/…; IntelliBriefs, ‘Whether Kosovo will create a precedent for other territories?’, 22 February 2008, http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2008/02…
ICG, New Briefing, ‘Kosovo’s first month’, 18 March 2008, http://www.crisisgroup.org…;
ICG, ‘Reassuring Kosovo’s Serbs’, 20 March 2008, http://www.crisigroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5348&1=1; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 26 March 2008; UN Security Council, Update Report No. 5, ‘Kosovo’, 13 June 2008.
The single most comprehensive source on status options for Kosovo is the ICG’s report Kosovo Countdown, pp.3–6. The alternatives listed in our survey are also drawn from Michael Waller et al, p.124; Shkëlzen Maliqi, pp.186–7; Miranda Vickers, p.287; Anna Matveeva & Wolf-Christian Paes, The Kosovo Serbs: An Ethnic Minority between Collaboration and Defiance, Bonn International Center for Conversion, Friedrich Naumann Foundation (Belgrade) and Saferworld (London), 2003, pp.47–9; International Crisis Group, Conflict Prevention and Resolution, 1 May 2005, http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.…; Rasmus A Kristensen, ‘Administering membership of international society: The role and function of UNMIK’, in Tonny B Knudsen & Carsten B Laustsen (eds), pp. 142–3; The Economist, 22 July 2006, p.35; Gerd Seidel, ‘A new dimension of the right of self-determination in Kosovo?’ in Christian Tomuschat (ed.), pp.212–15; The Independent International Commission on Kosovo, p.284; Dick Leurdijk & Dick Zandee, pp.145–8; Miranda Vickers, pp.269–70; Martin Pabst, pp.20–2; The Economist, 12 May 2007.
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© 2009 Deon Geldenhuys
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Geldenhuys, D. (2009). Kosovo. In: Contested States in World Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230234185_6
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