Comments on: Kosovo – the ICJ speaks

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 01:38:18 +0000

The Cour should have not accepted to give the advisory opinion. It has made more harms than goods. As far as Kosovo is concerned, it’s gonna be either a new war or secession from the North… The Court did not rule on a right to secession or to conditions that might led to secession. It limited itself to say that the declaration did not violate international law making its decision quite complicated to understand.
From the moment the Court decided to answer the question, it shoul have gone further and give a ruling on the conciliation of the right to self determination and the principle of territorial integrity of States.
Now, every independence movement will claim a right to secession based on this declaration no matter how much head of states, the court and the UN will try to explain taht it is not a precedent. By statins that a declaration of independence did not violate international law, the Court has opened the pandora box… it has already started with abkhazia and Ossetia… no matter what it is gonna be difficult to tell the RS to stay within Bosnia and Herzegovina and there are many more… The Court has added some soap on the slippery slope!

By: Mladen

Mladen — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 21:59:31 +0000

Serbia asked the question which had the highest probability of being answered in its benefit. There were no better alternatives. You could not ask “whether the unilateral independence was illegal” because it would mean that independence actually took place, and Serbia does not recognize that. It just accepts that the provisional institutions proclaimed independence. Anyway, the Court’s opinion is a catastrophe. Every student would explain and interpret the situation and positive international norms better. Their arguments are weak, just look the dissenting opinions. Declaration by itself is not violating the general international law, but is certainly violating SC Resolution 1244. The regime formed by this resolution is changed, and it must not have been done by any actor (except, of course, the Security Council). It makes no sense to say that Albanians were not bonded by the Resolution, no matter whether they acted as “representatives of the people” or through the institutions. It is just an intellectual post hoc construct, as said by judge from Slovakia. Albanians changed the status of Kosovo, a part of Serbia (a fact confirmed by the SC 1244 Resolution) by proclaiming independence. It is an ultra vires act. It was implicitly clear in the Resolution that no unilateral action could be legally accepted, indeed, the Resolution was actually written to avoid unilateral actions. Also, the right to self-determination as such is much less institutionalized than the territorial integrity. So, even if it is true and possible that “people of Kosovo” proclaimed itself independent outside or beyond the regime of UN bodies – which is, for sure, a nonsense – it could never legally result in the taking of the territory of a sovereign state. ICJ made a mistake, and that is going to be seen in the next years and decades.

By: Ultravoice

Ultravoice — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 17:14:04 +0000

So once again we act surprised when we find out that brute force is stronger then the force of law. This rulling is only getting us closer to the only sustainable and real solution to the problem at hand. Serbia will take the province back through the force of arms, the same way it lost it. Pretending that it will happen some other way, has just started to look like a pipe dream.

By: Privato

Privato — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:08:48 +0000

Serbia asked the specific question and got a knock out punch! Albanians didn’t choose the question and didn’t even want to go to court.