State Building and Exit
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State Building and Exit The International Civilian Office and Kosovo's Supervised Independence 2008 – 2012 Cover illustration: ICR Pieter Feith in Velika Hoča/Hoça e Madhe in October 2011. Photo by Atdhe Mulla. This book is a collaborative effort of a team of ICO staff members. It is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike License (refer to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/). Printed copies of the book can be ordered at cost price on the print-on- demand website www.createspace.com/4097025. Digital copies (pdf and epub) can be downloaded for free on the post-ICO website www.ico- kos.org. ISBN 978-9951-19-067-1 Pristina, Kosovo December 2012 CONTENTS Foreword by Pieter Feith v Executive Summary 1 I The Beginning 6 II The Constitution 18 III Reform and Stability 28 IV Challenges and Crises 39 V The Dual Mandate 56 VI The ICO Model 74 VII Deciding to End Supervision 85 VIII CSP Progress 2011-2012 101 IX Managing the End of Supervision 115 X Closing the Mission 129 XI Reality and Reactions 133 iv FOREWORD The International Civilian Office, which between 2008 and 2012 supervised the implementation of President Ahtisaari’s Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement,1 was an extraordinary international creation: a unique mission for a unique context in a young European state; and a mission that closed itself, in good time. The ICO was privileged to have been mandated to help implement such a clear and well-balanced blueprint for state-building as the Ahtisaari plan. Ours was not an open- ended mission to supervise the Kosovar authorities, but above all a forward looking program to support reform, integration of the communities and reconciliation in the region, to be completed in only a few years’ time. In this we were greatly assisted by the Kosovo leadership’s commitment to see the ICO succeed, which they considered as a success of their own in a partnership among equals. There were also limits set by lack of cooperation, including in the north of Kosovo. 1 The Comprehensive Status Proposal (CSP) is available on the post-ICO website on this page: http://www.ico-kos.org/?id=38. v International Civilian Office To protect the ICO’s legacy by highlighting its achievements is not the primary purpose of this document. That will be for others to take up if they wish to do so. Neither, coming so soon after the mandate ended, can we provide a detailed narrative of the regular, intensive but largely invisible work with the Kosovo authorities and with our stakeholders covering our core tasks, but more often than not the daily management of events, of unforeseen developments, of crises big and small. Nor do we include perceptions and expectations of those directly involved. It is rather about the dynamism of the ICO, its impact and effectiveness, the strategic choices and about the move towards the exit in close harmony with other players. Was the timing right to end the mission? What does the qualification “substantial” implementation of the Ahtisaari plan mean as an end state? In this age of austerity and evolving reflection on when and how to intervene in crises and post-crises situations, the type of short-time mission to implement a peace plan with the emphasis very much on local responsibility and ownership may offer precepts and cues for the future. No size fits all – every form of bene- volent intervention has its own characteristics. But Martti Ahtisaari crafted a similar plan to end ethnic strife in Aceh, Indonesia in 2005 and from my involvement in that mission I wanted to draw conclusions, in particular on how to end a mission. Thus, as early as in October 2009 – only a year and a half into the mission – an ICO management retreat sought to explore the way forward including the transfer of tasks to vi Building a State and Exit the EU, the move from a supervisory structure to one focused on advice and support, and a draw-down of selected units and possible timings of exit. And the process initiated in 2011 – of a two-track strategy to end supervised independence leveraging residual Kosovar commitments with transfers of authority to the institutions and “watch- lists” for other international players including the European Union - may merit emulation. For ideally an exit should not imply a complete and sudden halt to all international involvement but rather a carefully designed, gradual redistribution and cascading of tasks over a manageable period of time. If I had to try to identify the reasons for the ICO’s relative success, I would point to five factors: the brilliant construction of the Ahtisaari plan; the close-down clause of the plan, which we developed into an exit strategy; the nature of the settlement plan as a reform agenda (compatible with EU and transatlantic requirements); the interplay of supervision and support in our relationship with the Kosovo authorities; and the central role of those authorities in pursuing the plan (and collaborating to avoid ICR corrective action). The ICO has now been disbanded without leaving any footprint behind. It remains only as an enduring legacy in the emerging institutions of Kosovo and in the memory of those involved. I hope this document will be of use to others engaged in global conflict management, including those with whom we worked closely to advance the daily situation of the people vii International Civilian Office in Kosovo. To my former colleagues and friends in the ICO who contributed to this document I extend my heartfelt thanks. Pieter Feith International Civilian Representative for Kosovo, 28 February 2008 – 10 September 2012 viii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY On 17 February, 2008, Kosovo declared unilateral indepen- dence from Serbia, following six years of negotiations that finally produced the Comprehensive Proposal for the Status of Kosovo, also known as the CSP or Ahtisaari Plan. Following the declaration of independence, twenty-five states that recognized Kosovo as an independent state formed the International Steering Group (ISG) for Kosovo and appointed an International Civilian Representative (ICR) to head the International Civilian Office (ICO). The ICR was simultaneously appointed the European Union Special Representative (EUSR) representing a divided European Union (EU), where 22 states recognized Kosovo’s independence and five would choose not to do so. The ICR/EUSR’s dual mandate was to ensure Kosovo’s full implementation of the Ahtisaari Plan as well as prepare it for eventual European integration. In October 2008, Serbia made a formal request to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to issue an advisory opinion on the legality of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of 1 International Civilian Office independence. Fifty recognizing states presented their written briefs to the ICJ between the months of April and June 2009, and the closing arguments were presented before the ICJ bench in December, 2009. The ICJ advisory opinion was issued by the Court on 22 July, 2010 and it held that the unilateral declaration by Kosovo did not violate the general principles of international law. The Kosovo case was seen as unique and in keeping with the highest tenets of the preservation of human rights, and specific cultural as well as historical circumstances. The ICO’s Lessons Learned Report, “State Building and Exit”, reviews the period between February 2008 and the end of supervised independence on 10 September 2012. It highlights the core focus of the ICO in helping Kosovo implement the Ahtisaari Plan, in important tasks such as the demarcation of the Kosovo-Macedonia (still referred to as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) border, the decentralization initiative, municipal elections and protection of religious and cultural heritage to name a few. It reflects upon the successes and challenges (particularly in the divided northern region of Mitrovicë/Mitrovica) in the execution of the Ahtisaari Plan, a unique blueprint that did not have UNSC sanction and yet provided adequate political basis for a state-building enterprise in Kosovo. Chapter I studies the early vision for the ICO by its original planners and the set-up phase post February 2008. The Chapter focuses on the coming into agreement on the flag and national anthem, development and passage of laws in the Kosovo Assembly and the setting up of local self- government arrangements that would later be enhanced in a 2 Building a State and Exit decentralization effort in several municipal areas. The Chapter also briefly reviews the in-house challenges in the early phase of the set-up of the ICO. Chapter II takes a close look at the coming into force of the Kosovo Constitution, and the transition from the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK) to a European Union (EU) presence on the ground. It analyzes the ambivalent start of a EU mission (EULEX) deployment, challenges to institution building and the UN’s six-point strategy that attempted to facilitate, in agreement with Belgrade, the EU’s deployment of the EULEX mission on all parts of Kosovo’s territory including its pre- dominantly Serb populated Northern part. Chapter III provides an overview of the core tasks catalogued in the Ahtisaari Plan and discusses the setting up of new municipalities, border demarcation of the Kosovo- Macedonia (FYROM) border, municipal elections and the setting up of the Constitutional Court and selection of its judges. This Chapter also describes Kosovo’s diplomatic efforts to reach out to the larger global community as it dispatched diplomatic missions in key countries of the world, lobbied for more recognitions of its unilateral declaration of independence and joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB).