The Sounds of Silence
The Sounds of Silence
Making Sense of the Supposed Gaps in the Kosovo Opinion
The International Court of Justice has been criticized for having left important gaps in its Kosovo advisory opinion. This chapter considers three types of gap: issues on which the Court pronounced without much explanation; issues raised by the Court but left unaddressed; and issues ignored altogether by the Court. It argues that the Court has in fact advanced doctrine in relation to some of the issues it addressed, however briefly. It finds that the other supposed gaps in the Court’s opinion can be filled in by doctrine based on recent practice in a way that leads to the construction of a realistic and persuasive understanding of self-determination and secession outside the colonial context. The Court rightly avoided the temptation of making additional observations that might have impacted negatively on the evolving law in this area as occurred, for instance, in the Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion.
Keywords: Kosovo, International Court of Justice, advisory opinion, secession, statehood, self-determination, recognition
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