From Province to Protectorate to State: Sovereignty Lost, Sovereignty Gained?

Abstract

While the proceedings before the ICJ focused upon the legality of the Declaration of Independence and whether a people of Kosovo have the right or not to self-determination and thereby the right, or not, to secede from Serbia, the issue of how Serbia may have lost its sovereignty over Kosovo has received little direct attention. If the outcome is, as seems likely, that Kosovo is on the path to independent statehood, international lawyers need to account for how, in the absence of Serbian consent, its sovereign ties to Serbia have been or will be severed. It is this aspect of the Kosovo question that this chapter will attempt to draw out.

Keywords: Kosovo, sovereignty, ICJ proceedings