Back from RIO

It's been pretty quiet on the blog recently because life has been very busy lately. Apart from exams, papers, and general work, I've just been on a RIO Trip. Unfortuneately it isn't as glamourous as it sounds, as RIO stands for "Recht der internationale organisaties", which is Dutch for "Law of the international institutions".

The trip consisted of visiting a lot of European organisations in Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Brussels, and entailed an exhausting amount of presentations and travelling, and, as was pointed out, an unknown number of bars. The EU and the Council of Europe naturally featured on the list, but so did other less well known organisations and institutions within the EU and outside of the EU umbrella. The lasting impression is of a Europe that has embraced an extrodinary depth of co-operation and integration, the scale of which rarely strikes you until you've seen the many different forms of co-operation - and I'm sure we only saw a quick overview. The commitment of the people involved in these institutions is also impressive: again and again, we met people who were genuinely enthusiastic about their subject area, whether it was the prevention of torture or the regulation and safety of the skies.

The positions of the other, non-EU, organisations was interesting as well. In a continent full of international co-operation, the EU looms large as the Europe, and the other organisations are adjusting their roles in the face of the EU's success. From conflicted self-assertion and resignation (Council of Europe), to a vision of providing expert advice (Commission on Navigation of the Rhine), to that of enthusiastic service provider (EuroControl).

Notable exceptions from the trip were the Council and the EP. The Council was dropped because of the European Council summit which occured while we were in Brussels (so ironically I was close by but didn't know what exactly had happened until I got back home). The EP was dropped because, apparently, they're just bad at handling visitors and left a bad immpression on the last RIO trip - which is a shame, because the EP is, for me, the institution that communicates best online.

So to get back into the swing of blogging, I think I will cover some of the institutions and organisations and my impressions of them.

Kosovo Independence does not violate International Law

The International Court of Justice has ruled today that the Kosovar declaration of independence does not violate international law. Serbia had claimed that it was a "'flagrant violation' of its territorial integrity".

Why has the ICJ ruled otherwise? It's hard to say - at the time of writing, the ICJ website was down and I was unable to get a copy of the judgment. Though the judgment is not binding, this is an important judgment. Politically, it obviously lends greater legitimacy to the Kosovar state (and by implication delegitimises the resistance of its Serb minority, though the judgment's examination of the right of self determination might raise interesting questions there too), and also supports the US and general EU approach to the state.

The judgment could also signal a change in the international legal culture on self-determination and independence. though there are 2 UN General Assembly Resolutions supporting the right to self determination, they were generally intended as anti-colonial, and the UN supports territorial integrity. An explanation can be that self determination does not necessarily mean independence. After all, it's hardly the best idea for international peace to encourage separatism - supporting the idea of ethnically/culturally homogeneous states would cause a lot of disruption, conflict and misery across the world if it was ever carried out.

Hopefully the ICJ website will be back online soon, so the judgment can be available more widely; the legal reasoning will be very interesting.

UPDATE: An EPP MEP, Doris Pack has called on the remaining member states who haven't recognised Kosovo to recognise it now.