In June 1999, after three months of NATO air strikes had driven Serbian forces back from the province of Kosovo, the United Nations Security Council authorized creation of an interim civilian ...administration. Under this mandate, the UN was empowered to coordinate reconstruction, maintain law and order, protect human rights, and create democratic institutions. Six years later, the UN's special envoy to Kosovo, Kai Eide, described the state of Kosovo: The current economic situation remains bleak... respect for rule of law is inadequately entrenched and the mechanisms to enforce it are not sufficiently developed... with regard to the foundation of a multiethnic society, the situation is grim. In Peace at Any Price , Iain King and Whit Mason describe why, despite an unprecedented commitment of resources, the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), supported militarily by NATO, has failed to achieve its goals. Their in-depth account is personal and passionate yet analytical and tightly argued. Both authors served with UNMIK and believe that the international community has a duty to intervene in regional conflicts, but they suggest that Kosovo reveals the difficult challenges inherent in such interventions. They also identify avoidable mistakes made at nearly every juncture by the UN and NATO. We can be sure that the international community will be called on to intervene again to restore the peace of shattered countries. The lessons of Kosovo, cogently presented in Peace at Any Price , will be critically important to those charged with future missions.
In shaping the institutions of a new country, what interventions from international actors lead to success and failure? Elton Skendaj's investigation into Kosovo, based on national survey data, ...interviews, and focus groups conducted over ten months of fieldwork, leads to some surprising answers.Creating Kosovohighlights efforts to build the police force, the central government, courts, and a customs service.
Skendaj finds that central administration and the courts, which had been developed under local authority, succumbed to cronyism and corruption, challenging the premise that local "ownership" leads to more effective state bureaucracies. The police force and customs service, directly managed by international actors, were held to a meritocratic standard, fulfilling their missions and winning public respect. On the other hand, local participation and contestation supported democratic institutions. When international actors supported the demobilization of popular movements,Creating Kosovoshows, they undermined the ability of the public to hold elected officials accountable.
The international community's practice of administering territories in post-conflict environments has raised important legal questions. Using Kosovo as a case study, Bernhard Knoll analyses the ...identity of the administrating UN organ, the ways in which the territories under consideration have acquired partial subjectivity in international law and the nature of legal obligations in the fiduciary exercise of transitional administration developed within the League of Nations' Mandate and the UN Trusteeship systems. Knoll discusses Kosovo's internal political and constitutional order and notes the absence of some of the characteristics normally found in liberal democracies, before proposing that the UN consolidates accountability guidelines related to the protection of human rights and the development of democratic standards should it engage in the transitional administration of territory.
In this revealing work, Dag Henriksen discloses the origins and content of NATO's strategic and conceptual thinking on how the use of force was to succeed politically in altering the behavior of the ...Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The air campaign, known as Operation Allied Force, was the first war against any sovereign nation in the history of NATO and the first major combat operation conducted for humanitarian purposes against a state committing atrocities within its own borders. This book examines the key political, diplomatic, and military processes that shaped NATO and U.S. management of the Kosovo crisis and shows how air power became the main instrument in their strategy to coerce the FRY to accede to NATO's demands. The book further shows that the military leaders set to execute the campaign had no clear strategic guidance on what the operation was to achieve and that the level of uncertainty was so high that the officers selecting the bombing targets watched NATO's military spokesman on CNN for guidance in choosing their targets. Henriksen argues that structures preceding the Kosovo crisis shaped the management to a much greater degree than events taking place in Kosovo and that the air power community's largely institutionalized focus on high-intensity conflicts, like the 1991 Gulf War, hampered them from developing strategies to fit the political complexities of crises. Because fighting and wars in the lower end of the intensity spectrum are likely to surface again, study of the Kosovo crisis offers lessons for future international conflicts in which the combination of force and diplomacy will play a very significant role.
Kosovo's declaration of independence on 17 February 2008 has had a profound and polarising impact on international relations. While over a third of the world's countries have recognised Kosovo, ...others have been concerned that it sets a precedent for secessionist minorities. Indeed, Kosovo appears to have been used as a precedent in the Russia-Georgia conflict over South Ossetia. The book brings together contributions from leading academics on the legal aspects of Kosovo and, in particular, the International Court of Justice's Advisory Opinion of 2010. The result is an extensive examination from a variety of experts on Kosovo and its impact on international law.
This book examines international engagement with Kosovo since NATO's intervention in 1999, and looks at the three distinct phases of Kosovo's development; intervention, statebuilding and ...independence.
Kosovo remains a case study of central importance in international relations, illustrative of key political trends in the post-Cold War era. During each phase, international policy towards Kosovo has challenged prevailing international norms and pushed the boundaries of conventional wisdom. In each of the three phases 'Kosovo' has been cited as constituting a precedent, and this book explores the impact and the often troubling consequences and implications of these precedents. This book explicitly engages with this debate, which transcends Kosovo itself, and provides a critical analysis of the catalysts and consequences of contemporary international engagement with this seminal case study.
Each chapter focuses on a particular aspect of the international engagement with Kosovo and situates events there in an international context, highlighting the extent to which international policy towards Kosovo has challenged existing norms and practices. Kosovo has been cited in certain texts as a positive template to be emulated, but the contributors to this book also identify the often controversial and contentious nature of these new norms.
This book will be of much interest to students of humanitarian intervention and statebuilding, war and conflict studies, security studies and IR in general.
Aidan Hehir is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster.
The reconstruction of Kosovo after 1999 was one of the largest and most ambitious international interventions in a post-conflict country. The United Nations, other major multinational organisations ...and many large bilateral aid donors all played a role in restoring stability and establishing governance in the territory. This book looks beyond the apparently united and generally self-congratulatory statements of these international actors to examine what actually happened when they tried to work together in Kosovo to achieve this goal. It considers the interests and motivations, and the strengths and weaknesses of each of the major players and how they contributed to the creation of new institutions in public finance and public sector management. Although in general the international exercise in Kosovo can be seen as a success, in the sphere of public administration the results have been mixed. More than fifteen years later, some institutions of government perform well while others face ongoing challenges. The book argues that much of the current day performance of the Kosovo government can be traced to the steps taken, or not taken, by these international actors in the crucial first years.
