Data for: Kosovo’s Independence Constitution: A Unilateral Commitment to an Internationalized Pouvoir Constituant

Résumé 0

This is an Annotation for Transparent Inquiry (ATI) data project. The annotated article can be viewed on the publisher's website. On February 17th, 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia after more than 30 years of political limbo, constitutional ambiguity, and tension that had boiled into violence during the Kosovo War of 1998-1999. Kosovo’s constitution-making process is unique in that Kosovo unilaterally committed to an “Internationalized Pouvoir Constituant '' or an internationalized constitution-making process. In the years after the Kosovo War, there were a series of UN agreements and internationally sponsored peace talks, culminating in the 2005-2006 Vienna Talks. The outcomes of these agreements, which Kosovo accepted but Serbia rejected, served as the basis for Kosovo’s constitution. Kosovo’s unique liminal position within former Yugoslavia, as well as Internationalized Pouvoir Constitutant had both upstream and downstream effects on their constitution-making process through internationally designed process requirements, content-related requirements, and a final international. The Kosovo case stands in contrast to traditional constitution-making but shows that an internationalized version can be a success.