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| "Serbian resolution to carry moral weight" |
| 15 August 2008 | 09:27 -> 15:31
| Source:
B92, Tanjug |
BELGRADE --
Experts say Serbia’s resolution, if backed by the UN, will have moral significance, even if it is not legally binding.
 | The UN General Assembly (FoNet, archive)
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Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić will today submit to the UN a draft resolution in which Serbia calls on September’s General Assembly to seek the opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concerning the legality of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence.
Meanwhile, Kosovo Deputy Prime Minister Hajredin Kuqi says that Serbia’s plans to seek the support of the UN General Assembly in consulting the ICJ are “doomed to failure”.
“This move is an attempt to hamper normal and democratic functioning in a region,” said Kuqi, Priština media reported today.
“This attempt is doomed,” said Kuqi, adding that the Kosovo government did not believe that such an initiative would receive the General Assembly’s backing. “The world supports democratic, not retrograde movements,” he said.
Speaking to B92, a group of experts said that it was hard to predict how certain countries would vote and that the final verdict could be surprising.
“I’m not sure the court’s verdict will be ‘Kosovo illegally declared independence’, nor am I sure the verdict will be the other way round, it will most probably be very complex. The second consequence of the judgement will not be a reversible process, an invalidation of recognitions, so countries won’t just start withdrawing recognitions. It’s hard to imagine that this judgement will mean Kosovo returning to Serbia as if we’re starting from scratch, we’re negotiating again and they’re no longer independent, that won’t be a result of the ruling,” say international legal expert Vladimir Đerić.
“I’m in favor of proceedings being launched, of it being turned over to the court, so that we can remove that issue from the domestic agenda, so that we can say ‘that’s now up to the court for the next few years, the court will need over a year to consider this, Kosovo won’t be an issue for the next few years, and we can cool passions',” said former Foreign Minister Goran Svilanović.
Sonja Liht, president of the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence, said that she was convinced that provided Serbia continued meeting all its obligations, that its path to EU integration would not be hampered by this suit.
“That will be a question of interpretation, some will say it will be [hampered], others will say thank God that Serbia, when faced with big problems, addresses them with legal means as opposed to excessive confrontation,” said Liht.
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