Kosovo: legal or not?

Factual Questions
41

International law doesn’t really have anything to do with the UN or any other nongovernmental organization.

It is essentially composed of the sum of all treaties, trade agreements and other international agreements since the Treaty of Westphalia or thereabouts - some of which is brokered by the UN. One or two pretty much universal principles - the UN Declaration of Human Rights, for example - *are * cornerstones of modern IL.

That said, it’s pretty much common custom that the occupation of sovereign territory by armed forces in defiance of the wishes of the populace is illegal. On the other hand, Kosovo was not a sovereign state when the Serbs annexed it.

42

I’ve been looking for a thread about Kosovo. I saw that peacekeeping forces were apparently blown up there recently. I guess the groups there still haven’t negotiated good agreements. I’ll definitely have to read more about this "cause what I know is from the 90s.

43

FYI - Quebec has had 2 referendums on separation. The most recent, 1995, the “No” (No to “a mandate to negotiate separation”) side won barely by about 1%. Later it came out that a little less than 2% of the ballots were rejected for being marked improperly - with allegations these were “no” votes rejected by the separtist governmnet workers running the referendum. After that the federal government inroduced the Clarity Act

the Liberal government passed the Clarity Act, which stated that any future referendum would have to be on a “clear question” and that it would have to represent a “clear majority” for the federal Parliament to recognize its validity. Section 1(4) of the Act stated that questions that provided for only a mandate for negotiation or envisioned other partnerships with Canada would be considered unclear, and thus not recognized.

Clear majority is not specified, but the general feeling was that the country should not split up based on a difference of a few percent, particulalry as polling sentiment shifts a few percent from day to day. (Brexit, anyone?) Clear question is also required. There was the usual politicl shenannigans - the federal debt at the time was $600B so some “yes” propagandists said that if separation happened, Canda would have to pay Quebec $150B as its share (people unclear on the concept spreading manure). The separatist elite in the Quebec government insisted as a distinct peoples, the French had the right to sovereignity. When presented the reciprocal agrument from the aboriginal population which was the dominant population in much of the North, they said “of course not…” (the goose-gander principle.) Similarly, whether Quebec would keep those aboriginal territories given to it by Ottawa well after it entered Confederation as a province, with their minerals and hydo-electric power, “mais oui!” they said. What about armed forces, assorted federal assets, trade treaties?

Divorce is complicated.

IIRC the problem with China vs. China was that both insisted they were the representative of the entire domain fo China, altho one only de facto controlled Formosa and the other controlled everything else. You can’t admit someone who claims what someone else claims - one has to go. The Nationalist government held the seat (including security council) based on their position when the UN was formed, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that pretending the most populous country in the world was controlled by a rump faction was less and less tenable, and more and more countries were simply accepting reality.

The current Kosovo problem is apparently that there are some predominantly ethnic Serb towns, but in the Serbs boycotted the recent local elections so now the ethnic Kosovo non-Serb candidates won and are taking their mayoral posts (if the local town halls have not been burned down.) NATO troops are there I assume to impress on Serbia the importance of letting Kosovo be Kosovo.

Whether the original annexation of Kosovo or it’s departure are legal, I’m reminded of the quote from Clavell’s Shogun

“There are no ‘mitigating circumstances’ when it comes to rebellion against a sovereign lord.”
“Unless you win.”

44

Quebec in Canada and the Serb/Bosniak conflict are not really comparable in that the former has not seen much large scale violence in a couple of centuries, and the latter has been simmering for over 600 years and saw some pretty terrible violence within living memory of most people that live there. It is hard to even get people to speak to each other, when they view each other as historical enemies and they or their parents remember the fighting in the 90s.

45

I worked with a fellow who was an HVAC tech. He said he’d go home to Yugoslavia (back in the day) and earn a bit of money doing HVAC work there while on vacation. He’d rent a car and go all over Yugoslavia. He said that based on the provincial license plate, people would assume what ethnicity he was, and it was not unusual to be in a different province and find a few dents kicked in the side of the car based on ethnic rivalries. No question why the country fell apart.

Quebeckers did feel a sense of oppression in that the ruling elite was typically the English rich who owned the businesses. The Catholic church aided in keeping the locals placid. When the 60’s rolled around, and the French began to assert themselves, both those groups were labelled oppressors. There was some radical terrorsit activity, but no great widespread ethnic tensions that broke into violence.

One of the terrorists, Pierre Vallieres, wrote an screed in the 60’s that probably cannot be fully named here, “White N*****s of North America” giving a good idea how the more radical felt about the social imbalance. As a counterpoint, there were a few French-Canadian prime ministers, including Pierre Trudeau who invoked the War Measures Act to put down the terrorist threat in Quebec.

As time goes on, and the French-Canadians have been masters in their own province for longer and longer, I believe their sense of injustice is fading. It’s hard (but not impossible) to feel oppressed when you’re the ones in control.

I wonder to what extent the same would be said of Catalonia, since from what I read the major sense of injustice comes from the treatment of the area by the Franco fascists. History recedes.Grandchildren of the oppressed seem less inclined to remember the oppression if it is much less now.

46

Technically, secession was an explicit part of the Constitution of Yugoslavia (which, I believe, was still in effect in 1991).

The specifics are in the Preface and articles 5 and 238:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Yugoslavia_(1974)

The nations of Yugoslavia, proceeding from the right of every nation to self-determination, including the right to secession, on the basis of their will freely expressed in the common struggle of all nations and nationalities in the National Liberation War and Socialist Revolution, and in conformity with their historic aspirations, aware that further consolidation of their brotherhood and unity is in the common interest, have, together with the nationalities 1 with which they live, united in a federal republic of free and equal nations and nationalities and founded a socialist federal community of working people

The frontiers of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia may not be altered without the consent of all Republics and Autonomous Provinces.‘’

The S. F. R. Y. Assembly shall: […] (4) decide on alterations of the boundaries of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia;

So…you’re allowed to secede, but it’s also basically impossible.

47

In terms of what I would view as the general precepts of liberalism:

  1. A state is only “valid” if its leaders are democratically elected, fairly, and represent all people within the nation. And, when we say “represent” we mean that they defend the basic human rights of all citizens, regardless of ethnicity, class, gender, personal politics, etc. and try to see that there’s a shared respect for all non-murdering/non-thieving sorts of citizens. Under an invalid state, secession is always legal because the government has no morally defensible authority on which to base their power. “Might makes right” is not sufficient. “Majority rules” is not sufficient when it comes to basic human rights.
  2. Losing a vote is not a valid reason for secession. You’re going to win some and lose some, and you just have to accept that. You knew it going in and you need to stay true to your word to abide by the vote.
  3. Targeted repression, ethnic cleansing, taking away your representation, etc. would all be valid evidence that the system was not working for you. Whatever representation your group might have had in the government was insufficient to defend your basic rights and so the state returns to being on that is “invalid”.
48

Back in the days, did any country recognize Katanga or Biafra? Did either apply for UN membership?

49

That’s a pretty restrictive criteria. Not too many countries make that bar. “Fair” is debatable, for example depending on which side of the electoral college you’re on.
Basically, a government is legitimate if it can take and hold reasonable control of most of its territory. Whether a government is “good” is another story.

This was the concept of the Candian Clarity Act - losing a referendum by 50% plus 1 vote is not a valid reason to secede. It has to be clearly a significant majority on a clear question (but we won’t put a specific number on it)

Generally, though, the rest of the world will accept separation only if there are clear defined boundaries between groups A and B. I recall a lecture I attended once about the founding of the UN - the speaker pointed out that assorted ethnic tensions led to WWII, Sudetenland being a case in point - although the trigger was Poland with the same issue. Most ethnic groups do not have precise boundaries, absent serious geographical obstacles like mountains or water. Africa at the time was a powderkeg waiting for a spark due to arbitrary colonial boundaries. The UN’s main principle was that national boundaries were sacrosanct, and claiming an area due to its ethnic occupancy was not allowed.

Of course, like most diplomacy, expediency often overrules principle, especially as you point out when seious human rights violations happen or geopolitics precludes standing on principle.

50

That would be a realpolitik criteria, not a liberalist one. A realpolitik person would work with an authoritarian one, without qualms. A liberalist would support revolution against an authoritarian, despite having no skin in the game.

51

From a quick search, Biafra was recognized by a few African nations and Haiti. If they applied for UN membership, it was denied. Katanga does not appear to have been recognized by anyone, and the UN used force to occupy it shortly after it declared independence.

52

Not so. The premier of Quebec was prepared to issue a UDI the night of the referendum, even though the referendum itself called for a year’s negotiation.

53

Oddly enough, we live in the real world. 25 years of denying China existed got nobody anything. Within 20 years after they became essentially an industrial capitalist society (for a while). Denying the Taliban control Afghanistan simply means thousands will starve. Denying Vietnam was one country lead to massive massive disruptions. Cuba uses the US embargo as a convenient excuse why things are difficult.

OTOH, where we can finance subversion of an authortarian regime, sometimes we do. It’s worked really well with Nicaragua, eh? Gotta love what Pinochet did for Chile. Oh, and Iran - in 1954 we managed to prevent a socialist takeover of the oil companies’ property. Our principle on Venezuela is shifting a bit now that oil prices are more important than Maduro.

Politicians - left or right - can stick their fingers in their ears and chant loudly to fool themselves that a pocket of the universie is not unfolding as it sould have, but at a certain point things have to keep going for real. Politics is messy.

East Timor, South Sudan, Kosovo (or the whole Yugo-mess) - there are lines we are willing to cross on humanitarian grounds. There are plenty of other examples of where this does not happen - we have not formally recognized a Kurdistan; we did not recognize Iraq going into Kuwait; and perhaps if we’d been a bit more stringent about Crimea, we would not have the mess we do have.

54

Indeed. That was what I understand to be one of the principles of the Helsinki agreements - stick with existing borders but do not oppress the people within them, either individually or by ethnic or other group identity. Otherwise, we’re back to the eras of wars of simple territorial aggrandisement, whether in the name of dynastic rulers or nationalisms.

In the end, though, it may still come to a trial of naked force if one sufficiently powerful party (or more) simply walks away from that framework - as with the League of Nations, and now Putin.

55

Tigray in Ethiopia is a war that was barely reported; it happened in the past year. There is an ongoing civil war in Yemen which is almost never reported on as well. Many thousands of people have died in these wars. Reported in mainstream English speaking sources, that is. I learned about both from al jazeera

56

The most powerful international law is still basically the 500-lb gorilla principle.