LEGAL FRAMEWORK OF THE IDENTITY POLICY OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY IN POSTWAR KOSOVO — A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

Abstract

Background: This paper aims to elaborate and analyse the legal context of the identity policy of the international community in post-war Kosovo. Through this policy, the nature of Kosovo was determined as an entity under the UN administration until 2008 and as an independent state after that. Given that NATO’s military intervention in Kosovo was initiated for humanitarian reasons and, therefore, was not an intervention aimed at resolving the historical conflict between Serbs and Albanians, the UN administration in Kosovo was also established by being neutral towards national interpretations on the “issue of Kosovo”. This paper will bring together arguments that the international community, in its approach to the people of Kosovo, has actively tried to establish a new political entity detached from any national projections, thereby preventing it from being perceived as a national victory, especially among the Albanian majority. For this reason, all laws, regulations, governing documents and policies of the UN mission, which delineated Kosovo’s political nature and way of governing, were based on the ‘principle of multi-ethnicity’. This paper also examines the negotiation process for determining Kosovo’s final status, through which independence was conditioned by the commitment to building a state based on the principle of multiethnicity. Methods: In this article, qualitative methods have been used since the focus of this paper has been the understanding of some of the concepts of the legal framework used in the process of state building of Kosovo after the war and the role that the international community played in the policies of identity. The authors try to connect the theoretical with the practical aspects to present a broader view of the topic of this article. This scientific article is a single case study research focusing on the state of Kosovo in the post-war period. Data analyses were collected from the official documents of international institutions and the state of Kosovo. The historical method content analysis of the legal documents used in this paper has helped to achieve a deeper understanding of the topic presented in this paper. Results and Conclusions: The authors’ findings indicate that in post-war Kosovo, the international community in post-war Kosovo has established a neutral political entity in terms of national identification. This has been achieved through a legal and constitutional framework that prioritises identity by promoting multi-ethnicity and civic identity as the political identity of the people of Kosovo. This discrepancy between state and national identity has given rise to an identity crisis, especially among the Albanian majority population. This has resulted in religious radicalisation in part of the population and a lack of loyalty to the state in other parts of the country.