LOCAL PRESS

 

Dacic: Conditions for participation of Serbs in Kosovo elections must be fulfilled (Radio Serbia, by Senka Kuder)

“The Serbian government has not voiced its stand yet on the participation of Serbs in Kosovo elections on 8 June, but they believe all the conditions for their participation should be fulfilled,” Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said. Serbia is not satisfied, as Pristina keeps abusing the equivocality of some agreements reached in Brussels, Dacic told a press conference at the Foreign Ministry. He said the government would want Serbs to take part in the Kosovo elections in order to realize as important a political role as possible. Serbia is suffering pressure in order not to prevent admission of Kosovo to international organizations, he said. Serbia cannot prevent such admissions, but it will neither vote nor applaud, he emphasized. He stressed that Serbia’s stand to the crisis in Ukraine was a principled one and that Belgrade respected the territorial integrity of any state. Asked if Serbia is being pressurized by the West into introducing sanctions against Russia because of the Ukrainian crisis, he said Serbia would have to harmonize its policy with the EU ones when it becomes an EU member-state. As far as I have seen, neither all the European countries share the same views on that issue, added Dacic. He called on Western countries to abandon any pressure referring Serbia’s relations with Russia and China. He assessed that some countries would not renounce their practice of pressurizing Serbia as they believe it is only with pressure that they can influence Serbs. Serbs have changed a bit, though, and there is no need for anyone to exert pressure on us – it is our turn to do that with our constructive attitude, emphasized Dacic.

This month, a lively diplomatic activity is ahead of Serbia, he said. As early as on Monday, British Minister for European affairs David Liddington is coming to Serbia, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will most probably pay a visit on 17 June. Relations with the UK are very important for us and they have progressed a lot in the past years. We constantly appeal to them to find an interest we share, said Dacic. Our relations with Russia are a foreign policy priority of ours, he said, adding that the last time the Russian foreign minister visited Serbia had been three years ago. We must not allow so much time to pass between the bilateral visits from a country that supports us most, stressed Dacic. He also announced a visit of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on 10 June, the talks with whom will also touch on Turkish aid for the overhaul of the consequences of the severe floods in Serbia.

 

Dacic: Serbia can’t block Kosovo in the Venetian Commission (Politika)

“We meet nearly every two weeks with colleagues, including the colleague with the asterisk, footnote (Kosovo), and we are informed about everything. The only thing they didn’t inform me was that they will submit a request for membership in the Venetian Commission,” said Dacic. “And now to have the Quint countries coming to me to voice their expectations that Serbia will not oppose their membership and to have the next day… Great Britain submitting an amendment not to use the footnote anymore once (Kosovo) is submitted there,” he said. Dacic pointed out: “If we want fair and open relations, what do we have to hide?!” say nicely what you want. I also told them nicely: Serbia, of course, can’t prevent the accession (of Kosovo in the Venetian Commission) because the decision-making there is by a majority vote, but don’t ask us to even applaud to this. That is not normal, and we are asking for fair treatment,” said Dacic.

 

CIK and international community ignoring requests of Serbian list seven days before elections (Novosti)

One week before the early parliamentary elections in Kosovo, the Pristina authorities and the international community are completely ignoring the requests of the Serbs for the voting to be regular. That is why a boycott of elections is becoming a more realistic option for our fellow-nationals. The Serbian government has not yet called the Serbs to go to the polls on Sunday because official Belgrade also supports their conditions. They request: 1. All symbols of the so-called Republic of Kosovo to be removed from ballots 2. Elections committees in municipalities to be formed in line with national composition, and not discriminatory towards the Serbs 3. Election census not to be increased for national minorities to 70,000 votes. Novosti has learned that the working group formed by the Kosovo Central Election Commission (CIK) is closer to deciding not to fulfill the requests of the Serbs. “Still, I hope that the CIK will amend its decisions and give the Serbs the rights that belong to them. That is why it is necessary for the international community to get involved and stop the arbitrariness of the CIK, Ksenija Bozovic of Oliver Ivanovic’s SDP told Novosti. Even though the representatives of the Serbian list, according to Novosti, have discussed their requests with almost all most influential international community representatives, according to unofficial information, diplomats from influential countries are almost not ready to influence the CIK and help the Serbs in fulfilling their requests.

 

North Kosovo mayors: CIK breaching the law to the detriment of non-Albanians (Beta)

The mayors of northern Kosovska Mitrovica and another seven Kosovo municipalities stressed that the CIK, by introducing new rules of the definition of the number of mandates, was breaching the law to the detriment of the Kosovo Serbs and other non-Albanians. Due to the infringement on the basic democratic and European values, there are still no conditions for the participation of Serbs in the forthcoming parliamentary elections in Kosovo, due on 8 June.

 

DSS calls Serbs not to vote in Kosovo elections (Tanjug)

The Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) called on all Serbs and other non-Albanians not to cast their ballot in the Kosovo elections, as in that way they would contribute to the completion of a non-existing state - Kosovo. The DSS officials underline that the elections were called by “the self-declared president of a non-existing state”, and that Serbs could only be puppets in the Kosovo Assembly and government, as has been the case so far. DSS Vice-President Aleksandar Popovic said that the DSS position on the elections has always been clear - we advocate for voting in the elections under the laws of the state of Serbia and we are against these elections as they will not be held in line with these laws. “That was our stance while Boris Tadic was in office and there is no reason why it should be different now when the government has changed since a principle is a principle,” Popovic told a news conference.

 

Irinej: Kosovo and Metohija is a Serb sanctity (Tanjug)

“Kosovo and Metohija is the most sacred part of Serbia and Serbs and Albanians lived there for centuries without major problems, so the latest events, above all the secession of the southern Serbian province, have inflicted great pain to us,” said Serbian Patriarch Irinej in an interview to Albanian TV Top Channel. He called on the return of Serbs expelled from Kosovo and Metohija and the continuation of peaceful life. He paid a visit to Tirana to attend the sanctification of an Orthodox church of Resurrection of Christ. He said the Serbian Orthodox Church was ready to reach a just solution so that both sides are satisfied. Serbian history, culture and spirituality developed in Kosov and Metohija and there is a large number of Serbian Orthodox sanctities there, he said.

 

Zannier call Serbs to take part in Kosovo elections (Tanjug)

The OSCE Secretary-General Lamberto Zannier has urged Serbs to take part in the 8 June legislative elections in Kosovo and Metohija. In a statement to reporters, Zannier said that he has always been convinced that progress on the Kosovo issue requires participation in elections. He said that preparations for the elections are progressing well, and that everything seems to be ready for holding fair and free elections. “I would encourage the Serbs to participate in the elections. The OSCE is maintaining contact with all communities in Kosovo, and its mission is aware of specific issues that exist, but they will be addressed. There has been visible progress in Kosovo over the past months, and that is how things should continue,” Zannier said.

 

Cross-section of the UN peacekeeping activities (Politika)

Since 1948, the United Nations have implemented 69 peacekeeping operations of different types throughout the world, states official data of the UN Department for Peacekeeping Operations. Sixteen such UN operations, including the political mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), are underway today. In the field, the UN peacekeeping missions and operations have a total of 97,000 uniformed personnel (83,667 within UN troops, 11,924 policemen and 1,847 military observers). There are also 2,022 volunteers working on UN peacekeeping tasks. There are 116,462 people from 122 UN Member States within 16 UN peacekeeping operations. In the course of ongoing UN peacekeeping operations, 1,454 blue helmets died. Since 1948, 3,223 blue helmets died while performing UN peacekeeping tasks. From last July to June 2014, the UN peacekeeping missions were approved around $7. 83 billion, out of which $1. 54 billion has not yet arrived at the appropriate account of the World Organization. The UN peacekeeping operations are ongoing in Western Sahara, Central African Republic, Mali, Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudanese province of Darfur, Syria, Cyprus, Lebanon, South Sudanese region of Abyei, while the mission for South Sudan has been singled out through the UNMISS Mission, Ivory Coast, in Kosovo, in Liberia, and there is also the observer group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) and the operation of monitoring ceasefire UNTSO in the Near East ever since 1948.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

MONEYVAL releases statement: B&H blacklisted, all transactions with special checks (Oslobodjenje)

The Committee of Experts of the Council of Europe for the evaluation of the fight against money laundering and financing of terrorist activities (MONEYVAL) has released a statement in which MONEYVAL member countries, as well as other countries, are invited to pay special attention and to implement additional procedures during financial transactions with individuals and institutions from B&H. Such a decision by MONEYVAL was expected after the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly failed to adopt the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Activities by 1 June. MONEYVAL will send a recommendation to the global body Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which has a so-called ‘blacklist’. By putting B&H on this list, any financial operation with B&H is the object of strict supervision. Sending money from abroad will be much more complicated because financial institutions will be careful and establish numerous controls to ensure the money is not laundered or intended for criminal purposes. On the FATF gray list are Syria, Ethiopia and Yemen, while Iran and North Korea are blacklisted.

 

Dodik receives a decoration of Holy Russian Emperor Nicholas (Srna)

The Republika Srpska (RS) President Milorad Dodik has received a decoration of Holy Russian Emperor Nicholas, for his achievements in strengthening good and close relations between the Russians and the Serbs and their respective Orthodox churches. The ceremony was held in Visegrad and he also received a certificate of appreciation on the occasion of the 400^th anniversary of the Romanov Dynasty enthronement. The decoration was proposed by the Serbian Patriarchate, with the blessings of Russian Orthodox Church Metropolitan Ilarion. Serbian film director Emir Kusturica has been decorated as well.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Kosovo Serbs Urged Not to Boycott Elections (Balkan Insight, 31 May 2014)
Serbs in Kosovo should not boycott June 8 general elections because a boycott will not solve any of their problems, a debate on Friday in the Serb-run northern part of Mitrovica heard.
Norway's ambassador to Kosovo, Jan Braathu, on Friday urged Kosovo Serbs to vote on June 8 and elect true representatives to the Kosovo parliament.
"A boycott is not a good solution because a boycott also brings you representatives, but not your own representatives," Braathu told on debate held Friday entitled "Kosovo ahead of parliamentary elections".
Even if no Kosovo Serbs vote, the Kosovo parliament will still have 10 people representing the Serbian community, the ambassador noted.
The warning comes after heads of four municipalities in the Serb-run north of Kosovo on Wednesday said they were quitting activities related to the general elections until the Kosovo Election Commission meets their demands.
They want Serbian representatives placed in polling station committees in the Albanian southern part of Mitrovica and Kosovo state insignia removed from the ballots.
Ksenija Bozovic, President of the assembly in North Mitrovica, on Friday agreed that a boycott would not do any good and urged Belgrade to give Kosovo Serbs more guidance on what to do.
Dusan Janjic, director of the Fund for Ethnic Relations, meanwhile said that "a boycott of the election campaign does not have to lead to a boycott of the elections."
He called on Serbs to vote, noting the adverse consequences to local Serbs if they decide to boycott the poll. One is that the Serbian government's willingness to implement the 2013 EU-led agreement on normalisation of relations between Serbia and Kosovo would be questioned.
If Serbs in northern Kosovo do not vote, it will also be a major blow for the Kosovo authorities.
They hoped to see a repeat of last year's local elections in which Serbs participated in polls in the independent state for the first time.
Serbia-Turkey relations: ready for a new era? (Today’s Zaman, 30 May 2014)
Bilateral relations between the Republic of Serbia and the Turkish Republic appear to be enjoying renewed interest from both parties. And this is not simply due to the worst-ever floods that recently struck Serbia (as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina and to a lesser extent, Croatia), which led to an impressive show of public solidarity from Turkey, which donated hard cash and provided other help and goods.
This solidarity is not limited to individual citizens wishing to "do good," but is fully in line with official government policies in this field. However, for the purpose of writing this contribution, please allow me to depart from the grave effects of a natural disaster that continues to make headlines as more and long-term help is needed for the flood victims, to discuss the wider bilateral picture instead.
And in this context please bear with me, too, that whilst of course not neglecting its relevance, I will try to focus on bilateral relations without aiming to solve what many would call "the triangle dilemma," that is at all times analyzing Belgrade-Ankara relations by automatically bringing Kosovo into the equation. I reserve this subject for a longer, future article.
The reason for this narrowed approach is that elsewhere, relations are blossoming step-by-step; perhaps it was a sound decision to let them blossom somewhat removed from the spotlight of breaking news.
Think trade. Figures amount to roughly $700 million in bilateral trade exchange. But much more could be done, particularly from the side of Turkish businesses, as only $100 million makes its way to Serbian ventures.
Then there is the tourism sector, which is always a good indicator of the state of affairs in analyzing the two countries' relations. At the moment, only 100,000 Serbian visitors per year travel to Turkey for touristic purposes. This figure, similar to increased Turkish investments in Serbia, would benefit from upward modifications.
But there is much more to the relationship than trade and tourism. Cooperation in the fields of education and culture should be on the agenda. But perhaps most of all, both nations' civil societies must become involved via an increase in school, university and other exchange programs and bilateral visits to learn from each other and ultimately understand each other better.
Including history about civil society dialogue projects would not be a mistake. There are diverging interpretations of how relations between both nations evolved after Serbia gained independence in the 19th century. Seen from an Ottoman-era perspective, peace and stability preceded independence; seen from a Serbian dimension, some would argue that only after independence did the state begin to fully prosper.
And similar to other cross-border civil societies, paving the way for better mutual understanding on a political level, which leads to long-term friendship between nations -- as was the case between France and West Germany, although of course a totally different scenario; the involvement of civil society is what I want to stress in overcoming physical and mental barriers -- by discussing history in an open, friendly environment while always focusing on the present and the future is definitely a good idea. And the future could look bright for Serbian-Turkish relations. Belgrade supports Ankara's European Union bid. Then again, Serbia is considering its very own eventual EU integration and would benefit from Turkey's help in this regard.
Increased numbers of high-level visits of both countries' leaders are one step. Convincing both countries' business communities that engaging in more bilateral trade would make sense for profit margins is the next. Involving civil society in the process, and not only as tourists, is the third and an absolutely vital step to achieve lasting success. Not sidelining the historical dimension yet focusing on the present and the future is important, too.
Turkish-Serbian relations may not always be the most important item on the agenda of either Ankara's or Belgrade's day-to-day foreign policy making, but it would most definitely benefit from a renewed push. Why wait?
 
Serb lawmakers approve tax relief for employers, ratify UAE loan (Reuters, 30 May 2014)
Amendments aimed at curbing evasion and boosting employment
Belgrade: Serbia’s parliament approved income tax changes on Friday aimed at curbing evasion and boosting employment, and ratified a loan from the UAE to back its budget.
The amendments will entitle employers to a refund of tax they pay on workers’ wages, ranging between 65 per cent and 75 per cent, depending on the number of new jobs they create.
To cut unemployment of about 20 per cent, Serbia is trying to make its economy more attractive to investors, clarify laws on taxation and labour and cut down on the unofficial transactions, evading tax, and on the unregistered labour and trade that account for an estimated 30 per cent of gross domestic product.
Earlier this week, Finance Minister Lazar Krstic said the tax relief should encourage employers to formally hire people who are working illegally, before the government cracks down.
“I am certain that the tax relief will increase the employment rate,” Krstic told lawmakers.
The parliament ratified a $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion), 10-year loan from the UAE at an interest rate of two per cent, for budget backing.
Serbia’s 2014 budget assumes borrowing of €3 billion (Dh15 billion) from the UAE. Krstic said there would be a second $1 billion instalment later this year.
Belgrade is also seeking a $1.5 billion precautionary loan deal with the International Monetary Fund, but the lender said that talks are not expected to resume until the autumn, after the government sets its economic agenda and assesses the economic cost of floods that killed 51 people.
The European Bank For Reconstruction and Development on Thursday said the initial damage estimate was about seven per cent of the GDP.
Macedonia Opposition Mulls 'Parallel Government' (BIRN, by Sinisa Jakov Marusic, 2 June 2014)
As the deadline for forming a new Macedonian government draws closer, the opposition, which is boycotting parliament after recent polls, is considering setting up shadow institutions.
The opposition led by the Social Democratic Party, SDSM, whose MPs submitted written resignations to parliament last week after alleging fraud at April's elections, is seriously considering setting up a ‘shadow government’, a high-ranking party source told Balkan Insight on Monday.
“The party organs are considering various mechanisms. The idea of a shadow cabinet and a shadow parliament is being seriously considered because the current institutions of the system function as mere shells without any substance,” the source said on condition of anonymity.
He said that as part of the effort “to restore democracy in the country”, a whole range of parallel institutions could be set up in opposition to Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's government.
These could include a Financial Council, a Forum of Independent Judges, Anti-Corruption Commission and a National Security Agency, he said.
Last Wednesday, 33 MPs from the SDSM, the Liberal Democrats, LDP, and the New Social Democrats, NSDP, submitted formal resignations to the speaker of parliament. They dispute the legitimacy of the April general and presidential elections and attribute the victory of Nikola Gruevski's VMRO DPMNE party to fraud.
The SDSM head Zoran Zaev then announced that his party would soon launch further action.
He said that there would be “precise activities that will be open for participation to all the progressive forces in the country”, although he declined to give any further details about what these might be.
Tito Petkovski, the head of the smaller NSDP opposition party, has already said that he backs the idea of parallel institutions.
“Our goal is to restore normality in the country through a firm and bold boycott that would have a clear strategy and be within the democratic framework,” Petkovski said a week ago.
“To achieve this, we should first support the idea of the SDSM for an opposition-led shadow government but we also propose permanent sessions of the group of opposition legislators,” he said.
The deadline for the formation of the new government is June 8.
Before that, Prime Minister Gruevski, who has been in power since 2006, has to forge a deal with the junior ruling Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, and to submit his list of ministers to the parliament for approval.
Despite the absence from parliament of almost all the opposition MPs, the 123-seat assembly is still functioning because two-thirds of its legislators are at work.
International election observers from the OSCE/ODIHR said that polling day on April 27 went smoothly but also that the elections failed to meet key standards.
These concerned the separation of state and party activities, the existence of a level playing field between the parties, the neutrality of the media, the accuracy of the electoral roll and the possibility of gaining redress through an effective complaints procedure.
The European Union delegation to Macedonia and the US embassy in Skopje said it “echoed” these concerns and urged political leaders to resolve the dispute before it further endangered the country’s Euro-Atlantic integration process.
The VMRO DPMNE party has insisted however that the vote was fair.
Warning Issued Over Bosnia Money-Laundering Risks (BIRN, by Elvira M. Jukic, 2 June 2014)
After the Bosnian parliament failed to adopt legislation to tackle money-laundering, Council of Europe experts urged other states to be vigilant in financial dealings with the country.
The Council of Europe's expert committee on money-laundering issues, Moneyval, warned on Sunday that financial institutions should take precautions when conducting financial transactions with Bosnia.
“Moneyval calls on states and territories evaluated by Moneyval and other countries to advise their financial institutions to pay special attention by applying enhanced due diligence measures to transactions with persons and financial institutions from or in Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to address the money laundering and financing of terrorism risks,” its statement said.
The warning came after the Bosnian parliament failed to adopt a law on preventing the money-laundering and the financing of terrorist activities ahead of the June 1 deadline set by Moneyval.
Financial transactions into and out of the country are now expected to become more complicated and more highly scrutinised for potential wrongdoing.
Samir Omerhodzic of the Bosnian delegation to Moneyval said that the country had now become “high risk”.
He said that further sanctions will depend on the Financial Action Task Force, FATF, a global inter-governmental body acting against money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
“We don’t know what the future scenario will be; it will depend on a session of FATF in mid-June or of the committee of Moneyval in September,” Omerhodzic said.
Depending on the FATF’s assessment, Bosnia could be put on a list of problem countries alongside Iran, North Korea, Algeria, Pakistan and Syria.
The legal changes had been backed by the Bosnian government and the House of Representatives of the state parliament, but not by its other chamber, the House of Peoples.
Dragan Covic, the speaker of the House of Peoples, was accused of irresponsibility because he did not call for an urgent session on the issue last week before the deadline passed.
The House of Peoples had scheduled a session for June 6, five days after Moneyval’s deadline.
Bosnia’s Deputy Security Minister Mladen Cavar said that all earlier disagreements over the legislation had been sorted out and blamed the House of Peoples for not acting in time.
“I had promises from two months ago that there would be no problems in the adoption of the laws... if all amendments were agreed upon in the Council of Ministers. We created a law that was acceptable to all, but there was no session of the House of Peoples,” Cavar said.
But Covic said that it was not his fault because the legislation had been under discussion “for months” and the issue should have been resolved earlier.
“How does it always happen that exactly on the last day we remember the deadlines?” he asked.

Kosovo and Crimea – what’s the difference? (TransConflict, by Matthew Parish, 2 June 2014)
The only discussion of principle emerging from the debates over Kosovar and Crimean independence is that initiated by Woodrow Wilson towards the end of World War One, about whether national minorities have the right to self-determination. Can a smaller group be compelled to be part of a larger state, or should they be permitted to secede? To what extent do minority rights amount to a freedom to determine one’s own sovereignty?
In June 1999 an international military force led by the United States annexed Kosovo, then a province in southern Serbia with a population of perhaps 1.6 million people. Virtually all Serbian government administrators of the province fled. This took place after a NATO military campaign intended to degrade Serbia’s military and government facilities, in the course of which between 5,000 and 15,000 people are thought to have died and a further half a million to a million people became refugees. By any measure, events in Kosovo in 1999 were a humanitarian catastrophe. The result was that the region’s government was separated entirely from that of Serbia. Initially it was subject to a regime of international administration under the auspices of the United Nations. By 2005 it had its own autonomous domestic government; by 2008 Kosovo had unilaterally declared independence from Serbia. At the time of writing, 104 countries (more than half the members of the United Nations) recognise Kosovo as an independent state.In February 2014, Ukraine’s unicameral parliament voted to remove the country’s elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, from power, declaring that he had resigned. The Yanukovych government, perceived by many ethnic Ukrainians as pro-Russian, was replaced by a western-leaning administration and early elections were scheduled. Three days later unidentified gunmen occupied government buildings in Simferopol, the capital of the autonomous Ukrainian province of Crimea with a population of some 2.35 million. Irregular militias established checkpoints on the borders with the rest of Ukraine. The Crimean Parliament dissolved the province’s local government. Russian troops were subsequently acknowledged as present in Crimea in substantial numbers. A pro-Russian replacement government organised a referendum in March, the results of which were overwhelmingly in favour of independence. Crimea then made a unilateral declaration of independence from Ukraine and applied to join the Russian Federation. Russia agreed, enacting legislation absorbing Crimea into its federal institutions. Very few people died. No third country recognised Crimea’s independence, but they did not need to. Crimea did not aspire to become an independent state; it aspired to, and has succeeded in, joining another state. Crimea has since adopted Russia’s currency, western time zone, government structures and social welfare system. Its legislative structure is being similarly overhauled.
It is superficially tempting to compare these two extraordinary events of territorial self-determination through the lens of legal principle. Western narrative avers that Kosovo’s independence was legitimate as a matter of international law and diplomatic policy, whereas the annexation of Crimea was an act of illegitimate aggression by an insurgent Russian power. The two events had different origins, although both events were precipitated by different types of political crisis. The international annexation of Kosovo was the product of a low-level war of insurgency between the Serbian army and a developed but irregular Kosovo militia, the Kosovo Liberation Army, that had begun in February 1998. NATO intervened (initially with a UN Security Council mandate), so it said, to prevent bloodshed. Nevertheless NATO military action caused substantial loss of life, so at least some sort of utilitarian calculus (between lives saved and deaths caused) is surely necessary to evaluate the merits of what was done.
By contrast the annexation of Crimea was not precipitated by loss of life and caused almost no loss of life. The counting of lives cannot therefore be an appropriate method of evaluating the propriety of what Russia did; one must therefore appeal to some other principle to reach a conclusion about whether Russia’s actions were right or wrong. The most natural such set of axioms might appear to be those of international law. The argument run that Russia interfered in another country’s sovereign territory, and states should not do this. But legal arguments of this kind assume the inviolability of international borders. And Kosovo was the principal instance since the end of the Cold War where the international community has seen fit to abandon that notion. It did so even though the United Nations Security Council insisted that Kosovo remain part of Serbia after the end of the war there. With western support, the province declared independence nonetheless and three out of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council recognised its right to do so. If Kosovo can achieve such a feat over the strictures of the UN Security Council, why can Crimea not do the same where the Security Council has made no such pronouncement? No obvious answer of principle presents itself.
The issue was aired before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its advisory opinion on Kosovo’s independence, delivered in 2010. That opinion asserted that Kosovo’s declaration of independence was consistent with international law, but the reasons provided were obscure. The Court’s logic was that declarations of independence are never unlawful as a matter of international law. Indeed it does not matter how the declaration of independence comes about: that is a matter for the domestic law of the state, or aspirational state, in question. Even a powerful obstacle of principle to applying this analysis to Kosovo was intricately obviated. The Kosovo Assembly, issuing the declaration of independence, was a creation of the United Nations governance mission. The United Nations Security Council had issued a resolution prohibiting Kosovo’s independence. How could a UN organ overrule the UN Security Council? The answer the Court divined was that the Kosovo Assembly was not acting in its official role, but rather as a representative of the will of the people of Kosovo. Therefore it was free to disregard Security Council resolutions.
But the Court’s rationale in the Kosovo case lends itself even more forcefully to Crimea. In Crimea there was no Security Council resolution against independence, because Russia would have vetoed one. The internal procedure by which Crimean independence came about – a popular referendum, arguably harbouring more institutional legitimacy than the vote of a legislative assembly created by the United Nations – is irrelevant for the purposes of international law. By the reasoning of the Court, all that matters is the occurrence of a procedure which led to a declaration of independence. Therefore if Kosovo can declare independence, there is surely no reason why Crimea cannot do so as well.
One reaction to all this is simply to observe that the Court’s reasoning about Kosovo’s declaration of independence was wholly bogus and should not stand as a legal precedent of any kind. It was the product of the Court being stacked with pro-western Judges whose countries of origin had already recognised Kosovo’s independence. The Judges therefore lent their names to a legal opinion consisting of unprincipled scrap, in the interests of political expediency.
A principled jurist might however try harder than the Judges did, and attempt to divine some genuine legal principles from the Kosovo case and then enquire whether those principles lead to a different outcome for Crimea.
The argument of principle, at its most forceful, would be this. The majority of the population of Kosovo – its Albanian majority – wanted independence. They had been fighting a low-level insurgency for a number of years with a view to obtaining that goal. In the weeks and months before the NATO bombing began, the Albanian insurgency had been met with a Serb military crackdown in which at least several hundreds of people – Kosovar Albanians said the numbers were many more – had died. The extent of the violence meted out to the Albanian insurgents caused Serbia to forfeit its right to exercise sovereignty over the province: internal Serbian violence necessitated international intervention for humanitarian goals, which in turn entailed eventual independence. Once the province had been separated from the institutions of central government, it could not be returned.
But this argument involves a series of political judgments outside the realm of international law or even moral principle. It requires an assessment of the relative moral culpability of the violence instigated by Serbs and that by Albanians, and possibly even a judgment about relative collective guilt. The argument entails a conclusion that international military intervention was warranted in another country’s conflict to achieve humanitarian goals. It then entails a political judgment that independence was the best option facing the international community once it had occupied Kosovo.
None of these are matters upon which legal principles can sensibly declare. They require multi-faceted value judgments in the field of international relations. At its heart, the case for Kosovo’s independence was that given the corner into which the international community had isolated itself in 2008, Kosovar independence was the least bad outcome. Negotiations between Serbia and the Kosovar Albanians over the final status of the province had achieved nothing. The international community could not abandon the province it had occupied using military force, or the insurgency in which it had acted to intervene would surely have resumed. Had the United Nations sought to reintegrate Kosovo back into Serbia, this would have resulted in an Albanian insurgency against its own forces. UN occupation of the province had resulted in de facto independence from Serbia, and this was a trend it was impossible to reverse. But none of these are matters it is sensible to expect Judges impartially to pronounce upon. Each step in this chain of reasoning involves assessments born of political expediency and not of principle.
Hence any attempt to establish legal principles upon which an assessment of a province’s declaration of independence may or may not be justified is surely a mirage. The ICJ’s Kosovo decision established the principle that the internal constitution of a country is no obstacle to a declaration of independence being lawful. (Serbia’s constitution prohibited Kosovo’s independence.) Indeed the ICJ did not consider the  line of reasoning based upon political expediency at all, and hence its ruling was rendered bereft of all comprehensible logic. The rationale for Kosovo’s independence was not one of principle but of convenience to the interested occupying powers. This conclusion seems inescapable, or the ICJ – whose Judges are to be assumed competent and gifted – would surely have done a better job in attempting to rationalise what took place. But in that case, the same metric of political expediency falls to be applied to Crimea’s independence. It was convenient and appropriate to Russia that she facilitate the province’s independence and joinder to the Russian Federation, in light of unattractive events in a neighbouring country. Any argument against this analysis may be premised only upon the value-laden judgments involved in international politics, and not upon the supposedly objective parameters of international law.
At the current time it is hard to portray a politically neutral narrative of the turmoil in Ukraine in 2014, as  events are too recent and hence the politics of media partiality colours too thoroughly any attempt at verifiable historical analysis. Nevertheless the basic course of events is something like the following. In November 2013 the then-Ukrainian President repudiated an agreement for closer economic ties with the European Union after years of negotiations, in favour of a substitute subsidised energy deal with Russia. European and American governments then funded a revolutionary movement that led to his overthrow before the expiry of his electoral term, and he fled the country. The government in Kiev was replaced with a pro-western interim administration. Russia was fearful of Ukraine falling into a western orbit, and in particular joining her military rival NATO or developing economic ties with the European Union to the exclusion of Russian influence. To preclude this, Russia orchestrated a peaceful uprising in the ethnically and historically Russian province of Crimea, which houses the Russian Black Sea fleet. This took place with the consent of the overwhelming majority of Crimean residents.
Measured by the criterion of popular will, Crimea’s independence from Ukraine was every bit as proper as that of Kosovo: 90% or more of the population of both provinces supported their respective acts of independence. Russia’s actions in annexing Crimea were less harmful than those of NATO in annexing Kosovo: only one person is recorded as having died. The political events that led to the act of annexation in each case were different: insurgency and crackdown, versus overthrow of a democratically elected government. Nevertheless it is hard to say, as a matter of political pragmatism, that one of these two measures justifies military intervention in a foreign state less than does the other. In neither case did the internal constitutions of the states from which secession took place permit the acts of secession. But that in itself seemed of scant relevance in either case. Larger countries seldom acquiesce when their smaller provinces secede. (Scotland’s forthcoming referendum on independence from the United Kingdom may become a notable counterexample.)
The conclusion of this discussion is surely that international law has nothing much of value to say about international borders. The only discussion of principle emerging from the debates over Kosovar and Crimean independence is that initiated by Woodrow Wilson towards the end of World War One, about whether national minorities have the right to self-determination. Can a smaller group be compelled to be part of a larger state, or should they be permitted to secede? To what extent do minority rights amount to a freedom to determine one’s own sovereignty? Wilson was of the view that as a matter of international law, minority groups have a right of self-determination. This seems to entail that provinces dominated by an ethnic minority can declare independence from larger states of which they unwillingly form part.
But this notion has ebbed and flowed amidst the tides of international relations, and has never been consistently accepted. If it is intended to be a general principle of international law, it has  consequences for the future of a number of minority regions as far apart as Xinjiang, Catalonia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh, that the international community might be reluctant to embrace. If international law cannot even coalesce a consensus around this relatively straightforward principle, it is not certain that it can say anything intelligent about secession and the emergence of new states at all. If that is right then the difference between Kosovo and Crimea is precisely nothing, save one of political expediency; and the colour of that lens depends upon which direction one may be looking through it. Viewed from the west, Kosovo is most expedient whereas Crimea is not. When one gazes through the eastern corner of the same lens, reflections may be reversed.
Matthew Parish is an international lawyer based in Geneva and a frequent writer on international law and international relations. In 2013 he was elected a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and named by Bilan magazine as one of the three hundred most influential people in Switzerland. His third book, Ethnic Civil War and the Promise of Law, will be published later this year.