Security Sector Reform and Transitional Justice Nexus: An Analysis of the International Peace-building Collaboration in Kosovo (original) (raw)
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Peacebuilding and Police Reform in the New Europe: Lessons from Kosovo
sipr.ac.uk
Police Reform in countries in transition is closely connected to peacekeeping and peacebuilding. The article discusses successes and failures, and the role of police, using Kosovo as an example. It is essential to know whether strategies, structures, and methods of military and police interventions are working, and we need to know whether the reform of administration, police and judiciary in the aftermath of an international intervention are sustainable. As peace and justice go together, the role of police reform in the context of the reform of the judiciary is discussed. There is an open clash between the mainstream international understanding of what a "just society" or a society, functioning under the "rule of law" is (or should) be on one side, and the local understanding of the members of a society, who survived different kinds of suppression and war over years or centuries, often by building up their own informal structures and their own rules of living together. In Kosovo, nine years of a UN international protectorate has achieved remarkably little. The country is called "UNMIKI-STAN", and one may find quotes like "We came, saw and failed" (Zaremba 2007), referring to those who came as experts for UN, OSCE, EU or NGO´s. One reason for the failure is, that neither the military (KFOR), nor the international police force (UN-MIK CIVPOL) or the UN-administration have been prepared in a proper way for their mission, resulting in disadvantages and bad examples for locals. The organization of administration, as the organization of the reform of public institutions and judiciary in Kosovo was lacking basic social and ethnographic knowledge of the country and the Kosovo society. This resulted in at least partly practising "peacekeeping as tourism" (Sion 2008) and spending more money for international experts and administration than for supporting the country. In 2008, more than nine years after the UN took over responsibility for the country, the legal system is still not working properly and the country is in a disastrous social and economic situation. Huge, ineffective reconstruction programs and a body of neo-colonial administrators become the focus of local resentment. 53 separate national police units were under UN-umbrella at the beginning practising their own brand of law and order, while at the same time preaching the gospel of universal standards. Police officers or civil workers, arriving in Kosovo with very best intentions, often got frustrated by the burden of UN-or OSCEadministration. Others came to Kosovo as "mission addicts", spending more time in "networking" and organizing their next mission than taking care of their official and well paid task. Missing cooperation within the international organizations and between these organizations and NGO´s resulted in mismanagement and structures of keeping the own organization running while paying no attention to the work of others. To reform public institutions demands more than flying in internationals and imposing new laws or regulations. Civilizing security in a country in transition also needs a strong theoretical background. By using Clifford Shearing´s idea of "Nodal Security", try 5 . Nevertheless, as UN-Resolution 1244 is (in summer 2008) still valid: Kosovo is not a state in terms of the international or public state law.
European Security, 2012
Security Sector Reform (SSR) is critical in post-conflict settings, particularly when it comes to the reform of judicial systems, intelligence services, police, correctional systems, and the military. This article traces and analyzes the inter-institutional division of labor between the European Union (EU), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission in Kosovo, and the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) concerning police reform process in Kosovo. After providing an overview of the evolution of cooperation on SSR between the EU and these other international organizations in Kosovo, the article outlines the complex division of labor among various international organizations in establishing the police force, discusses the process of recruiting minorities into the force, and analyzes the general process of reforming Kosovo's police force. Following a discussion of the obstacles and challenges associated with building and reforming the police, it concludes with a summary of key findings.
A Peacebuilding Success: How has the Kosovo Force Facilitated Sustainable Peace in Kosovo?
MKI Policy Brief, 2023
After the Kosovo War ended on 10 June 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operationalized the Kosovo Force (KFOR) to maintain peace between Kosovo Albanians and ethnic Serbs. Since then, KFOR has ensured that conflicts between these two demographics do not escalate beyond the level of antagonism, thus maintaining peace in Kosovo. However, the dominant narrative perpetuated by political pundits often overlooks KFOR's contributions to peacebuilding and instead focuses on how ethnonationalism precipitates violent hostilities. Accordingly, this policy paper seeks to shine a light on KFOR's role by conducting a case study analysis of its operational activities. The analysis shows that KFOR has been integral to the formation of sustainable peace in Kosovo due to its enhancement of Kosovo's security sector reform process, the impact of its civil-military cooperation initiatives and psychological operations, and its ability to maintain operational readiness. Following the analysis, the paper presents two policy recommendations that are expected to reduce the likelihood of inter-community conflict if implemented by KFOR.
Compare NATO-E.U.-U.N. civil-military relations to control and administer Kosovo.
After the end of the Cold War's antagonism between the two blocs, a fundamental question about the new world order arose. The question of which state, group of countries or organization should dominate the realm of security and defence became the idée fixe of most discussions in the early 1990s. In Europe, this question has been asked with particular intensity, as it was here that an intensification of conflicts between ethnic and national groups had escalated most, especially in the Balkans, after the "Autumn of Nations". This question remains unsolved, while the relationships, or correlations between the three main political (defence) forces -NATO, the UN and the EU still raise many concerns.
United Nations interventionism: peacekeeping operations in Kosovo
The Kosovo crisis was in the air for a long time, since the first protests of the Kosovar Albanians in 1981, after Tito's death continued to grow during the disintegration of the Yugoslav Federation in the early 1990s. The intervention of the international community in the summer of 1999 whose legality was and is still questioned, apparently managed to end the war, but not animosities and ethnic discrimination between Serbs and Albanians. This paper seeks to find answers to several questions, including the effectiveness of the peacekeeping process and of international interventions in post-conflict areas and their contribution to a more stable peace. The objective of the research is to describe the peacekeeping activities deployed in the unstable region of Kosovo and to analyze their role played on the international security system and their effects on the civilian population from the province. This paper aims to initiate in the backstage of the phenomenon of peacekeeping, bringing the pros and cons in terms of efficiency of the KFOR troops in Kosovo.
Balkanologie: Revue d'études pluridisciplinaires, 2004
The changes and continuities of international community policies towards the Kosovo/a conflict involved a contested reorientation of attitude intimately tied up with the preservation of international peace, regional order and existing institutions. The prerequisites of order shaped at a significant degree the behaviour and the arrangements of international community to the settlement of the case. Accordingly, the attitude and the engagement of international community in the Kosovo/a case can be explained in terms of these prerequisites rather than the intrinsic causes of the conflict. These arrangements offered by international community as solutions to Yugoslav dissolution process did significantly affect the development of the Kosovo/a conflict. These policies failed to produce consensus between the parties in conflict, instead, as the paper would try to demonstrate, they played the role of a catalyst in the initiation of the conflict. Therefore, this paper, by offering a detailed reconstruction of the process by which the international community tried to settle the Kosovo/a case1, would seek to demonstrate how the dynamics of the conflict interacted dynamically with international community attitude and policies towards the case.
European union mission for the rule of law in Kosovo
ILIRIA International Review, 2011
Here we have studied the international circumstances that have affected the deployment of the EULEX Mission in Kosovo. The EULEX mission is the European Union Mission for the Rule of Law in Kosovo. Its main goal is to advise, assist and support the Kosovo authorities in issues of the rule of law, especially in the field of police, judiciary and customs performance. Also this mission has the responsibility to develop and further strengthen the independent multi-ethnic justice system in Kosovo, by ensuring that the rule of law institutions are not politically influenced and that they meet the known international standards and best European practices. This mission was foreseen to be deployed to Kosovo, based on the Ahtissari Comprehensive Status Proposal for Kosovo, but due to its non-approval by the UN Security Council, its full implementation was delayed until December 2008. EULEX acts within the framework of Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council and under a single chain of comm...
UNMIK and EULEX Extraterritorial Governance in Kosovo
2020
In recent times we have seen that previously established peace and stability instruments have lost their authority. The factors which have guaranteed them for decades have started to self-regulate certain legal and political issues, and thus, such behaviour has produced distrust and global misunderstandings. In this work, our aim will be to connect and understand the recent United Nations (UN) Resolutions, more specifically Security Council Resolution 1244 as related to Kosovo. The UN has been an important factor of stability in the previous century and its role has changed, thus, it is necessary to examine its recent decisions and the legal effects they have produced. In the case of Serbia and Kosovo, we will examine the legal outputs and similar cases. The need for authority in conflict resolution and legal decision enforcement is more than vital for cases such as Ukraine or Syria and (unfortunately) future cases. The UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has been changed and reshaped in the recent period many times according to its actual (everyday) needs. Contrary to the earlier cases of state recognition in the Western Balkans, the acceptance of Kosovo by the UN never happened. Its recognition by the European Union (EU) member states has caused another inner division in the EU and showed how many decisions without unanimous agreements are harmful. We will focus on the special agreements made between the UN and EU as related to the transfer of authority to Kosovo and what precedents it creates. Kosovo’s independence in 2008 has started an avalanche in the World as related to the establishment of new states on the Kosovo principle which has again harmed the UN system of sovereign states and free nations. This case is of vital interest to both the UN and EU and also to the International Court of Justice in The Hague (ICJ), which could soon be challenged again and tempted to define what sovereignty is. The number of international actors present in Kosovo for almost 20 years, including the UN, the EU, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and various other organizations, provides a very challenging example of conflict resolution and prevention. A recent agreement signed by Serbia and Kosovo in Brussels in 2013, called the Brussels Agreement, deals with very challenging legal questions which requires some constitutional changes in both countries. What binds Serbia to enforce and respect such decisions when its sovereignty is guaranteed by the UN? In Serbia, the question is, who interferes with its sovereignty and how does the EU treat the UN and its Security Council decisions? In sum, extraterritorial governance has changed the understanding of sovereignty for some post-conflict countries as well as more stable countries.