Kosovo,Self-Determination and the International Order

Yugoslavia's wars provide a rich example of the range of challenges posed to international stability and fundamental principles of international relations since 1989. Within this context, Kosovo's independence has now become a cause celebre of the use of the principle of self-determination in state-creation. In addition, the case of Kosovo is an important development in the practice of humanitarian intervention and by implication the evolution of the concept of the Responsibility to Protect. To better understand the effects of Kosovar claims to self-determination on international order, a clearer understanding is required of the factors shaping that order and how self-determination (as it emerges from the road to Kosovo's independence) relates to those factors. The issue of ‘self-determination after Kosovo’, is placed here into both the context of Yugoslavia's collapse and a number of broader key features which could be said to have played a dominant role in shaping international order post-1989.