Description
Over the last period, voices from within and outside Kosovo and Serbia have tentatively suggested that a territorial exchange between these two entities might be a possible solution to ongoing tensions in the region. Aside from supposedly assuaging ethnic tension in Kosovo and enhancing the potential for Kosovo’s full diplomatic recognition, this proposal seems to assume that the international legal (re)affirmation of the Kosovo-Serbia border would bolster Kosovo’s security as a state. This paper critically analyses this assumption by adopting Boaz Atzili’s (2012) claim that ‘border fixity’ (the normative prohibition on breaching de jure state territory) causes and preserves state weakness instead of stability. Maintaining that the ontology of Kosovo’s statehood is fundamentally premised on international political power rather than on international legal Opinion (2010), boundary-drawing, or recognition, this paper outlines how the (legally) ‘unfixed’ nature of the Kosovo-Serbia border has actually served to augment Kosovo’s state security. It finds that while international involvement in Kosovo has weakened local institutions, the lack of (international legal) ‘fixity’ of Kosovo’s territory has compelled this involvement to bolster Kosovo’s political security as a state. While this paper, thus, does not make any definitive claim about the legitimacy or viability of Kosovo’s statehood, it does draw a connection between contemporary norms about the fixity of state boundaries and the strengths and weaknesses of Kosovo’s statehood.
