“Property rights are human rights”: Bureaucratization and the logics of rule of law interventionism in postwar Kosovo

Abstract

AbstractWhat makes property restitution “successful” in postwar Kosovo? How are multiple, overlapping, and conflicting property regimes folded into the process of postwar transition? And what can the implementation of rule of law illuminate about international interventionism? Daily practices at the Kosovo Property Agency (KPA, the administrative, quasi‐judicial institution that the United Nations tasked with postwar property restitution) reveal the runaway effect of the growing bureaucratization of international human rights: institutional success is measured through neoliberal “technologies of accountability,” and the project itself becomes the key outcome. This is the result of a paradigm shift in global development that saw the legalization of property rights as a cornerstone of post‐conflict state‐building. A parallel shift towards managerialism and auditability in public sector management has given rise to demands for efficiency and accountability in transnational institutions. Together, these moves, which found fertile ground in Kosovo's reconstruction process and determined the mandate and institutional setup of property restitution, transform rule of law from an idealized public good to a shortsighted, box‐ticking exercise chiefly concerned with the production of measurable returns. These benchmarks sidestep the complicated historical legacies of property relations and entitlements and generate new forms of rights inequality.