The West’s Expensive Albatross in the Balkans

Last Thursday the International Court of Justice ruled that Kosovo’s declaration of independence — its secession from Serbia in February 2008 — was legal. This purports to justify the gross violation of Serbian sovereignty engineered by the United States and Germany, which served to create another Islamic gangster state in the Balkans. The ex post facto ICJ ruling clears the way for the recognition of Kosovo by those Western governments who up to now have proved reluctant to sign on.

The Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies has published an analysis by Srdja Trifkovic of this latest farrago. Some excerpts are below:

ICJ Ruling: Blow to Serbia, Boon to Tadić

By Srdja Trifkovic

Ever since the U.S. intervened in Serbia’s domestic politics two years ago and helped the current coalition take power in Belgrade, Boris Tadić and his cohorts have been looking for a way to capitulate on Kosovo while pretending not to. The formula was simple: place all diplomatic eggs in one basket — that of the International Court of Justice — and refrain from using any other political or economic (let alone military) tools at Serbia’s disposal. On July 22 the ICJ performed on cue, declaring that Kosovo’s UDI was not illegal.

It should be noted that the ICJ has only assessed Kosovo’s declaration of independence; it has not considered more widely Kosovo’s right to unilateral secession from Serbia. Furthermore, the ICJ has not assessed either the consequences of the adoption of the UDI, namely whether Kosovo is a state, or the legitimacy of its recognition by a number of countries. The ICJ decision was unsurprising in view of the self-defeating which the UN General Assembly posed at Serbia’s request: “Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?” As a former British diplomat who knows the Balkans well has noted, international law takes no notice of declarations of independence, unilateral or otherwise; they are irrelevant:

[I]f the town council down the road here in the UK makes a solemn unilateral declaration of the town’s independence from the UK, the rest of us will make a wry smile and go back to blogging or working. The declaration is ‘in accordance’ with UK law — free speech and all that. [… ] If citizens of our town en masse support the declaration of independence, put up road-blocks, stop paying taxes to Westminster and proclaim Vladimir Putin their new king with his consent, things begin to get more interesting. Norms are being created and broken in all directions.

The ICJ has done more than its share of norm-creation. Its advisory opinion is deeply flawed and non-binding, but the government in Belgrade now has a perfect alibi for doing what it had intended to do all along.

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Following the appointment of Vuk Jeremic as Serbia’s foreign minister in 2007, this outcome could be predicted with near-certainty. As President Boris Tadić’s chief foreign policy advisor, Jeremic came to Washington on 18 May 2005 to testify in Congress on why Kosovo should stay within Serbia. In his subsequent off-the-record conversations, however, he assured his hosts that the task was really to sugar-coat the bitter Kosovo pill that Serbia would have to swallow anyway.

[…]

Kosovo is now an expensive albatross costing American and European taxpayers a few billion a year. It will continue developing, not as a functional economy but as a black hole of criminality and terrorism. The ever-rising and constantly unfulfilled expectations of its unemployable multitudes will eventually turn — Frankenstein’s monster-like — against the entity’s creator. There will be many Ft. Dixes to come, over there and here at home.

Read the rest at the Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies.