As a structural realist I am not at all surprised about the shallowness of international legal norms. I am, therefore, not apalled about the recent developments around Kosovo, but rather amused. Kosovo is legally speaking part of the Serbian state, which as such is a fully recognized member of the United Nations. Her territorial integrity ought to be protected by international law. The United Nations is not authorized under any clause of its Charter to support the secession of any entity of Serbia, let alone promote it. Resolution 1244 (1999) clearly endorses Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo.

Today, the US, France and the United Kingdom have decided not to push for a Security Council resolution which would have led to a sort of supervised independence of Kosovo after some further 4 months of negotiations between the Serbian Government and Kosovo representatives – which, as we all know, was to placate the Russians, who, however, do not see it that way.

Thus, these western countries have abandoned the SC as the principle framework to address the the Dispute over Kosovo’s indepepence – an issue of highly questionable legality anyway. The UN path was stopped before a formal vote had taken place! The issue of Kosovo’s legal future will now be addressed by the Contact Group made up by the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Russia. An issue of delicate legal character – the secession of Kosovo and the recognition of its independence – is now being decided by a forum which has no legal authority at all. The Contact Group is raw realist power politics.

What makes the whole matter even more amusing is the fact that the UK, Germany and France are now actively supporting to by-pass the UN Security Council. Circumventing the UN was so fiercely opposed by France and Germany back in 2003 – when the United States and the United Kingdom decided to wage war against Iraq.

I do not actually want to address the question whether Kosovar independence is without any alternative, legitimate, illegal or whatever. This is for regional experts to decide. I do not have a very strong opinion on it. This blog ist just to address the irrelevance of international legal norms if these norms block great powers’ interests. But this is precisely what we realists would expect.