To­day's Ed­i­to­r­i­al

The In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice has de­ter­mined that the rel­a­tive­ly small and re­cent­ly self-de­clared in­de­pen­dent coun­try of Koso­vo has every en­ti­tle­ment to its in­de­pen­dence.�

At the same time, the Unit­ed Na­tions' high­est court ruled against Ser­bia's claim that in uni­lat­er­al­ly de­clar­ing it­self in­de­pen­dent, Koso­vo had vi­o­lat­ed Ser­bia's ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty. In de­liv­er­ing the judg­ment, the Pres­i­dent of the ICJ, Hisas­hi Owa­da, said there was noth­ing in in­ter­na­tion­al law which pro­hib­it­ed Koso­vo's de­c­la­ra­tion of in­de­pen­dence. And on that ba­sis the court con­clud­ed "that the de­c­la­ra­tion of in­de­pen­dence on Feb­ru­ary 17, 2008, did not vi­o­late in­ter­na­tion­al law." The his­tor­i­cal back­ground to the is­sue of ter­ri­to­r­i­al sov­er­eign­ty comes out of the dis­in­te­grat­ed Yu­gosla­vian Re­pub­lic, which it­self was a cre­ation out of the frag­men­ta­tion of the Aus­tria-Hun­gary de­feat in World War 1. The re­al­i­ty was that notwith­stand­ing the au­thor­i­tar­i­an na­ture of Gen­er­al Tito's cre­ation of Yu­goslavia, the var­i­ous and many eth­nic­i­ties had their own iden­ti­ties and were com­mit­ted to hav­ing their own in­de­pen­dent ex­is­tence. Made up main­ly of eth­nic Al­ba­ni­ans, Koso­vo de­clared In­de­pen­dence in 2008 and has had its in­de­pen­dence sup­port­ed by 69 coun­tries, in­clud­ing the US and a num­ber of Eu­ro­pean states.

On the oth­er side, Rus­sia has been very much on the side of the Ser­bian gov­ern­ment which has in­sist­ed and will con­tin­ue to in­sist that Koso­vo is not a coun­try. Of course there is con­tra­dic­tion here, the Rus­sians be­ing very much with the peo­ple of South Os­se­tia want­i­ng to de­fect from Geor­gia to join the Russ­ian re­pub­lic. To­day, with the an­nounce­ment by the ICJ of the le­git­i­ma­cy of Koso­vo as a state, the ex­pec­ta­tion is that dozens of coun­tries will now wel­come it among in­de­pen­dent na­tions. How­ev­er, notwith­stand­ing the de­ci­sion of the ICJ, the Ser­bians, Rus­sians, Chi­nese and oth­er gov­ern­ments will hang on to the view that Koso­vo should re­main part of the ter­ri­to­ry of Ser­bia.�But what of the im­pli­ca­tions of this judg­ment for the many mul­ti-is­land states in the Caribbean in which there is a con­test over the sta­tus of so-called "out­er-is­lands" to the main state want­i­ng to de­ter­mine their des­tiny?

Start­ing right in the arch­i­pel­ag­ic state of Trinidad and To­ba­go in­clu­sive of the many is­lands off the west­ern penin­su­la, for decades there has been a strong lob­by in To­ba­go for in­ter­nal au­ton­o­my and self-de­ter­mi­na­tion and a de­sire for recog­ni­tion of that sta­tus. In Nevis, the call for in­de­pen­dence from St Kitts has even been stronger. In the in­stance of the Turks and Caicos, the au­ton­o­my sought by many on the is­lands is from Britain. Over the last few years in the Dutch Caribbean is­lands, the rift is al­so quite wide with Cu­ra­cao and Aru­ba want­i­ng sep­a­rate and spe­cial re­la­tion­ships with the Nether­lands. Many years ago, Suri­name opt­ed out of the colo­nial re­la­tion­ship with Hol­land and gained its in­de­pen­dence. In Puer­to Ri­co, there con­tin­ues to be con­tests be­tween those who want to stay with the as­so­ci­at­ed sta­tus with the Unit­ed States and those who would have the is­land as­sert it­self as an in­de­pen­dent na­tion.

With the de­ter­mi­na­tion by the ICC of Koso­vo hav­ing the right to in­de­pen­dence, it could very well be that the move­ments in the Caribbean mul­ti-is­land states which want to move away from cen­tral con­trol by a dom­i­nant is­land, could gath­er mo­men­tum to strike out on their own, per­haps even de­clare them­selves in­de­pen­dent in the knowl­edge of this prece­dent. What could re­al­is­ti­cal­ly hap­pen here be­tween To­ba­go and Trinidad is an in­crease in de­mand for in­ter­nal au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go in its re­la­tion­ship with Trinidad.�Sure­ly, the eth­nic di­vide in the Caribbean and the his­tor­i­cal an­tag­o­nisms do not go any­where as deep as in the Ser­bia-Koso­vo con­flict. The an­swer, there­fore, must cer­tain­ly be in the mul­ti-is­land states ar­riv­ing at mu­tu­al­ly ac­cept­able con­sti­tu­tion­al re­la­tion­ships to avoid the pos­si­bil­i­ty of splin­ter­ing.