What is more important: to dispense justice or to achieve some kind of peace? The court in The Hague wrote the history of the Yugoslav dissolution by politically motivated parcelling of responsibility among former belligerents. This new historical narrative will have far reaching negative conseque
The virtuous circle initiated by the Dayton-Paris agreement has turned into a vicious one. As elsewhere in Europe, federal constructs are overrun by centrifugal forces. Bosnia finds itself is a similar situation to Spain, Belgium and Scotland - all countries endangered by a possible breakup. A rea
All western Balkan states depend heavily on their cooperation with the EU. If the EU crumbles under the weight of the economic crisis, what fate awaits the countries of the former Yugoslavia?
India and China postpone talks on border disputes at last minute. NATO forces clash with local Serbs in northern Kosovo. Afghan forces take over security in new areas, and a Maoist rebel leader is killed in eastern India. All this in today's security briefing.
Unlike most of the world's economic powers, Serbia still does not recognise Kosovo as a state. It will need to, though, before it can start down the road to EU accession.
China publicly links recent attacks in Xinjiang province to Pakistan-based terrorist group. Radical anti-US cleric al-Sadr warns Washington that military trainers could become targets. After years of fighting, al-Shabab withdraws from Mogadishu. NATO, Kosovo and Serbia reach agreement following vi
The partial retrial of Kosovo's former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj over charges of murder, cruel treatment and torture heightens concerns that the ICTY may be bending fundamental legal principles in favour of the prosecution, argues Roland Gjoni
Since the ICJ ruled Kosovo’s independence legal last year, Serbia’s position on Kosovo has become untenable, both politically and in international law. Will the country’s politicians finally recognise that it is in their own interests to recognise Kosovo?
Kosovo faces a host of challenges in its fourth year of independence, not least the quest for diplomatic recognition.
Informality allows people to change their immediate circumstances for the better, but it locks the state and society in a vicious circle of reproduction of a weak state, promising insecurity for the majority and prosperity for the few
Dick Marty's report to the Council of Europe reflects the unfortunate politicisation of that body by Russia since accession in 1995. Kosovan politics is not clean, but there is no evidence of organ trafficking by Thaçi. And Marty's judgement is clouded by his anti-American instincts. Christophe So
Dick Marty's Council of Europe report is serious and credible. It alleges organ trafficking and other crimes and corruption at the heart of the Kosovo Liberation Army and implicates the Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi. Justice now demands a proper judicial enquiry. Denis MacShane disagrees here
