ICJ: Argentina starts second day of debate

Argentina sent one of the longest written statements to the court during the previous stage of the proceedings, disputing the legality of the unilateral proclamation.

Argentine expert Marcelo Cohen is also in the official Serbian delegation, which is led by Serbia's Ambassador to France Dusan Batakovic, and also included FM Vuk Jeremic.

As he spoke on Tuesday, Cohen reminded that the UN General Assembly, Security Council or any other international institution have never before accepted the secession of the territory of a country in the way that those who support Kosovo's independence are advocating.

"If on Earth there was to be a single territory where secession would not be permitted, it would be Kosovo," said Marcelo Kohen, another lawyer representing Serbia.

Malcolm Shaw, a lawyer representing Serbia, warned the court that its ruling is being watched with "great apprehension" by other states also facing separatist pressures.

Also on Wednesday, Albania, Germany and Saudi Arabia, the countries that recognized the declaration, will be the first to present their legal arguments in favor. Each country will have 45 minutes for their presentation.

As others who have recognized Kosovo's secession, they are expected to claim that the province's ethnic Albanians have a right to self-determination due to violations of their rights, that UNSCR 1244 did not contain provisions to prevent it, and that some 60 countries have accepted this by recognizing Kosovo.

On December 7, the ICJ will hear the arguments of Cyprus, which not only says that the unilateral declaration was contrary to international law, but also provides a list of all the regions in the world that could be destabilized with separatist demands, in case the court supports the secession of Kosovo.

A day later, both Washington and Moscow will have their representatives address the court.

A delegation from Kosovo, led by Skender Hiseni, defended the Kosovo Albanian declaration before the ICJ in The Hague on Tuesday by saying that it was "the will of the people" and rejecting any possibility of opening new Kosovo status negotiations.

The head of the delegation, which was referred to by the ICJ not as Kosovo but as "the authors of the independence declaration," said that it had been the realization of the will of "Kosovo's people", reflecting their "desire to decide their political status for themselves".

Hiseni said that "regardless of the past problems and sufferings undergone by Kosovo's people, Kosovo still had a desire to build good relations with Serbia and negotiate practical issues of life in that ethnically mixed community".

He stressed that Kosovo could not enter negotiations that questioned its status as a "sovereign and independent state".

Hiseni remarked that those who wanted to renew the status negotiations were "either unaware of the current situation or were trying to cause chaos in the region", adding that Kosovo had been recognized by all the "neighboring countries", except Serbia.

The delegation also included British international law expert Michael Wood, who gave an unusual summary of the region's history, claiming that Kosovo - which was part of the Serbian medieval empire before it was invaded by Ottoman Turks in the late 14th century - was snatched by Serbs from the Ottomans, and annexed to Serbia. That is, he said, when violations of the rights of the Albanian population started.