Legal battle for Kosovo begins at the ICJ

Serbia was first to address the 15 judges at the Peace Palace in the Hague.

The head of the Serbian team, ambassador Dusan Batakovic, said the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo was a challenge to the UN and its authority, and in particular to its capacity to function in the future in the sphere of its main competencies - peace and security.

"This declaration is also a challenge to the international legal order based on the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity", Batakovic said.

"Serbia is convinced that the UN and the international community, with the help of the advisory opinion of the judges of the ICJ, will find the right answer to this challenge which is touching the fundamentals of the international legal order", he sadi said.

Batakovic added that the Kosovo crisis is not only a history of negotiations and armed conflicts, but also a history of human suffering for the citizens of Serbia, in particular those of all ethnicities in Kosovo.

"The democratic Serbia is sincerely sorry for all the tragedies committed by those who had acted in the name of Yugoslavia and Serbia during the Kosovo conflict, and in particular for the hard breaches of human rights of the Albanian population during 1998/99", Batakovic said, adding that a number of soliders and policemen had been sentenced by Serbian courts for war crimes.

He said that the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army had at the same time committed hard crimes against Serbs, other non-Albanians, as well as Albanians loyal to Serbian authorities.

He recalled that the basic human rights of the Serbs and other non-Albanians in Kosovo are"vitally endangered" as we speak and that the rate of their departure from Kosovo was steady.

The head of Serbia's delegation said that all the major Kosovo towns, except one, are ethnically cleansed from the Serb population and that the crimes of ethnic Albanian extremists since 1999 remain unpunished despite the fact that some 1,300 people are missing and the same number of people had been killed.

He said the Kosovo Albanian act had transformed the Kosovo Serbs from a constituent nation in Serbia to a "minority status" within its own country.

Batakovic underlined that the unilateral declaration of independence was an attempt to cancel the UN administration in Kosovo and to cut down Serbia's sovereignty in its southern province. 
 

"Serbia is convinced that the court will, as it has done to date, base its advisory opinon exclusively on international law, independent of political considerations and power relations among states", he said.

Following Serbia, statements will be given by the Kosovo Albanian delegation.

The states arguing in favor of Serbia are: China, Russia, Spain, Romania, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Burundi, Cyprus, Venezuela and Vietnam.

The case for the Albanian UDI will be supported by the United States, France, Great Britain, Germany, Albania, Holland, Norway, Croatia, Austria, Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia, Bahrein, Denmark, Finland and Jordan.

The 15 judges are expected to issue an advisory ruling by the middle of 2010.