Wayne State University Law School's Program for International Legal Studies and the International Law Students Association will host a lecture by Brad Roth, an associate professor at Wayne Law and in WSU's Department of Political Science, at 12:15-1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 19, in the Law School's Spencer M. Partrich Auditorium. Roth's lecture is titled: "The independence of Kosova and self-determination in international law."
"Brad Roth is one of the world's leading scholars of statehood and its meaning in contemporary international affairs," said Wayne Law Professor Gregory Fox, director of the Program for International Legal Studies. "His take on Kosova independence should not be missed. It will be of interest to those curious about conflict in the Balkans, as well as those interested in the phenomenon of secession worldwide."
Roth specializes in international law, comparative public law, and political and legal theory. His latest article, "Secessions, coups, and the international rule of law: assessing the decline of the effective control doctrine," will appear in the May 2011 issue of the Melbourne Journal of International Law. He is the author of Governmental Illegitimacy in International Law, contributing co-editor with Fox of Democratic Governance and International Law, and the author of roughly 30 book chapters, journal articles and commentaries dealing with questions of sovereignty, constitutionalism, human rights and democracy.
The event is free and open to the public, and lunch will be provided. Parking is available for $4.75 in Structure #1 across from the Law School on West Palmer Street in Detroit.
Source: Legalnews.com
3 comments:
Well, the "self-determintaion in international law" part will be interesting indeed; if Roth talks pur IR, he will bash Kosovo's independence while citing clause after clause and conclude with how any state can declare similar secession if they follow Ksoovo's path.
Formal legal arguments aren't what decided Kosovo's future.
Keep in mind that citing the province's unique history and international supervision, the west insisted that Kosovo wasn't a precedent for other break-away republics.
Given that Kosova was annexed by Serbia in an unlawful manner, Kosova's independence will in no way be in contradiction with international law.
The future of Kosova cannot be compared with secessions in some other parts of the world. The states that remain reserved towards Kosova independence should be mindful of this fact. They should instead look and find the common grounds between Kosova and certain other countries of the world, which have agreed to the removal of sovereignty over other territories. In this regard, the relations between Kosova and Serbia are comparable with the relations of Indonesia and East Timor. As it is well known, East Timor was occupied and annexed by Indonesia in 1975, contrary to the will of Portugal as the external sovereign, a fact which makes the annexation of Indonesia unlawful. In 1988 Indonesian government recognized the right to self-determination to the East Timor people. Singapore is another example that should be taken under consideration. This country was partitioned from Malaysia in 1965. The example of Eritrea is also meaningful for Kosova. It was the Ethiopian government that recognized the right to self-determination to Eritrea in 1991. The case of Kosova is also similar to the case of Namibia. Partition of Namibia from South Africa and its independence occurred in 1991. Therefore Kosova's independence should not be compared with secession of territories that were not annexed in a unilateral manner (against the will of the people of the original sovereigns), which joined existing states but that they are operating in territories that were part of these states at the time when they were established. In this way even the separatist movements in Transdnjestrovle (Moldavia), in Southern Osetia and Abkazia (Georgia) that do not have the ethnic basis that Kosova has and which didn't have an autonomous or federal status at the time of dissolution of former Soviet Union as Kosovo had at the time of dissolution of former Yugoslavia. Finally, Kosova Albanians are not comparable with Catalonians, Scots, Wellsians, Basks or Corsicans… because they did not face a massive deportation from the states, which controlled them.
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