Exit law, enter politics: The foundations and the legacy of the contested independence of Kosovo

The way Kosovo is achieving independence has been welcomed with antithetical opinionsin the international community, especially with respect to international law. Thispaper attempts to shed light on the legal trajectory which brought Kosovo on the wayto statehood. After determining that Kosovo has not, prima facie, any positive rightto independence, its de facto statehood is contrasted with a few doctrines that couldcontribute to support it, namely self-determination, remedial secession theory, andinternational dispositive powers. The analysis finds that Kosovo independence mightbe legally justifiable under a collective recognition theory, possibly supported withremedial arguments. Having further enquired over the effectiveness and the legitimacyof its independent status (statehood criteria), this article contends that such turn ofdevelopments in Kosovo is better explained through more genuine political reasoning.The validity of independence as a solution is not debated in itself, but on the basis ofthe whole process the negative effects of reaching such outcome by the way of a onesideddecision are discussed.