Kosovo's Progress towards Acceptance Proceeding Well

Slowly but surely Kosovo is progressing towards becoming an independent state. This week it won admittance into the International Monetary Fund, and Slovenia revealed it had submitted its opinion to the International court of Justice. The ICJ accepting opinions for its ruling over Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence. Slovenia supports Kosovo's independence.

The ICJ was asked to given an advisory ruling on the matter by the UN in a letter delivered October 9. The UN was acting after it agreed with Serbia's motion that the ICJ should rule on the matter. ICJ rulings hold no official weight, and many of them have been ignored in the past. However, if Serbia wants to become a full member of the European Union, which it does, then it will need to go along with the ICJ's ruling should it be in favour of Kosovo.

The ICJ set the seventeenth of last month as the time-limit which all 35 UN Member States and Kosovo must submit their written statements on the matter. It was announced a few days later that all parties had submitted their opinions within the allotted time. Now the above parties have until the middle of July to present their written comments on each other's written statements.

Then it's all up to the ICJ. I called the information department at the ICJ to try and find out when they thought the ruling would be made but got an answering machine, the main number told me no one was available in the information department. Online news is too fast paced to wait.

Recent statements by the Serbian President Tadic have indicated they will still fight Kosovo's independence no matter the ICJ ruling "no matter what" was his exact words. I however think eventually UN membership will become more important to Serbia's future than preventing Kosovo's independence as a state.

By Emma Louise Bailey - 2009-05-08 12:39:03

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Filed under: Overseas Property, European News

Tagged: Kosovo | Serbia | UN | ICJ |

About the Author: Emma Louise Bailey

Emma Louise is a staff writer with SEO company Write About Property.

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Comment By: Mike

Date: 2009-05-08 15:03:53

Comment:
I doubt that Serbia will choose the EU over it's own territory! The EU itselt is an elitist group run by only a few members who pull the strings. Giving up your own land to join any group is insane and should not be condition of joining. Let's say I have a house and rent out the second floor for several years. The people on the second floor, after being there so long, have had several children in that time. I live alone on the first floor or my house... should they be able to claim the second floor of my house as an independent home!?!?! Same thing with Kosovo!

Comment By: Emma Louise BAiley

Date: 2009-05-08 15:03:53

Comment:
@mike Hardly! That is a way oversimplified view of the situation.

Comment By: Mark

Date: 2009-05-08 19:39:55

Comment:
Mike let's say you come from another continent.You leave the Ural mountains and envade the Balkans in the 7 th century.You don't bring any land with you and yet claim it all.The same thing with Serbia.Oh wait that is Serbia.

Comment By: Nick

Date: 2009-05-08 22:11:45

Comment:
Well Mike it just happens the tenants lived in the house before this so called landlord took their property and forced them to pay rent... About time that justice would prevail... strange but it has happened

Comment By: HARDtalk

Date: 2009-05-08 22:11:45

Comment:
TO EMMA:
What an ironic example. It seems that you are one of those ultra nationalists who claim Kosovo is their holly cradle. You are completely wrong.

Comment By: QuestionMark

Date: 2009-05-08 22:11:45

Comment:
In the 1999 negotiations before the war the US could easily have forced Serbia to give Kosovo adequate minority rights. It didn't do so and instead made a war inevitable by asking for Kosovo's independence and free access to all Serb terrotory for NATO troops.

After the war the US could easily have obtained some kind of semi-independence for Kosovo by initiating real negotiations where the rights of Kosovo's Serbs would be bargained against the Albanian wish for self-determination. Again the US chose not to do this. For five years it refused all negotiations - claiming that the Albanians were not ready. And then it started the Ahtisaari charade where a proposal to give the Albanians everything they want and the Serbs nothing was presented as a nice compromise. On paper Ahtisaari's proposal looks very nice. But paper doesn't mean very much in Kosovo where even basic rights like property and freedom of movement are not guaranteed for the minorities. Solid autonomy would have helped a bit, but Ahtisaari granted only a very weak level of autonomy - claiming to be afraid of separatism. With the implementation of the Ahtisaari plan the scandal becomes only bigger as Kosovo's Serbs are blackmailed by robbing them of their rights (for example to have their own cops) unless they recognize Kosovo.

If the US continues this "my way or the highway" approach to solving Kosovo I expect it will take many years before Serbia resigns.