This book offers critical analysis of international attempts to resolve the Kosovo crisis, presenting a first-hand perspective of settlement attempts from the Carrington conference to the Rambouillet and Vienna negotiations. That twenty-year period saw the application of the entire arsenal of diplomatic tools available for crisis management, including good offices, negotiation, mediation through proximity talks and shuttle diplomacy, high-level conference diplomacy, action at the United Nations Security Council, and even the use of force. Despite this level of engagement, the provisional end r ... More

This book offers critical analysis of international attempts to resolve the Kosovo crisis, presenting a first-hand perspective of settlement attempts from the Carrington conference to the Rambouillet and Vienna negotiations. That twenty-year period saw the application of the entire arsenal of diplomatic tools available for crisis management, including good offices, negotiation, mediation through proximity talks and shuttle diplomacy, high-level conference diplomacy, action at the United Nations Security Council, and even the use of force. Despite this level of engagement, the provisional end result was the very one the organized international community had most wanted to avoid: independence for Kosovo. The book traces international diplomatic attempts to grapple with the crisis against the backdrop of Kosovo's struggle for statehood. It asks how Kosovo managed to achieve its aims and what this result will mean for the future of international relations. The relevance of this latter aspect — the impact of the Kosovo episode on the international system — was demonstrated most recently by the actions of the Russian Federation in South Ossetia and Abkhasia. After locating the Kosovo crisis within the wider context of the dissolution of Yugoslavia and tracing the various attempts at international diplomacy, the book concludes with an analysis of the comprehensive proposal for a settlement submitted by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari, and its eventual recasting into the constitution of Kosovo upon unilateral independence.