La relevancia (o no) de la administración internacional de Kosovo en la Opinión consultiva de la Corte Internacional de Justicia de 22 de julio de 2010: perplejidades de un lector

Abstract

The Republic of Kosovo is the first precedent in which a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) has been issued from a territory under a transitional international administration regime. This situation is especially relevant within the content of the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the accordance with international law of the UDI in respect of Kosovo.
The analysis of the Advisory Opinion allows us, firstly, to extract the relevant case law of the Court on some of the issues related to the delimitation of the concept, its nature, and the legal regulation of a territory under international administration: in particular, defining the basic features, establishing the law applicable in the territory, its nature and the scope of the control exercised on the applicability of law by those who established the international administration regime. Secondly, the Advisory Opinion causes perplexity with regard to the specific consequences drawn by the Court on the existence of an international administration in relation to the law applicable to the UDI; the Court strives to avoid a situation in which the law governing
international administration is applicable to the UDI. This paper highlights the serious contradictions that, in the author’s opinion, are contained in the Advisory Opinion.