September 16, 2008
International Law and Politics
Abstract:
The International Court of Justice’s docket increasingly
includes fact-intensive cases in which the Court must focus on
more than legal questions because the outcomes of the cases
depend on a detailed assessment of the facts. Examples of
such cases include Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo
(Democratic Republic of Congo v. Uganda) (the Armed Activities
case) and the more recent judgment in Application of the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
(Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro).
In the Armed Activities case, the Court dealt with a wide
range of complex, highly factual issues. These issues related,
inter alia, to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC’s) assertions
that Uganda violated the prohibition on the use of
force and the principle of non-intervention by engaging in
military and paramilitary activities against the DRC, occupying
the DRC’s territory, and supporting irregular forces operating
there. The DRC further claimed that, in violation of international human rights and humanitarian law, Uganda had both
committed acts of violence against the DRC’s nationals and
their property and failed to prevent such acts by people under
its control. Finally, the DRC alleged that Uganda had violated
rules governing respect for sovereignty over national resources
and rules of occupation by looting, plundering, and illegally
exploiting the DRC’s assets and wealth.
In highly fact-intensive cases such as these, the Court must
untangle the exact sequence of events, identify the actors involved,
and make factual and, ultimately, legal determinations. For instance, in Armed Activities the Court had to assess
whether Ugandan forces were in the DRC, under what mandate,
and at what point in time. This task was further complicated
in Armed Activities by the fact that the deliberations on
the merits began before hostilities had concluded. The character
of these fact-intensive cases is fundamentally different
from that of the Court’s more traditional cases, such as territorial
disputes, where legal issues are clear-cut and involve many
of the same elements. In these cases, “it is not so much the facts that are disputed as the conclusions to be drawn from
them.”
The Court considers itself well equipped to engage in
complex factual determinations and has on occasion referred
to its very specific and fact-based findings as being “noteworthy.”
A close reading of Armed Activities challenges this view,
revealing that the Court fails to engage in independent fact assessment. Most strikingly, the Court accepts as proven facts
that are drawn from secondary evidence, in particular from
United Nations (UN) reports. Furthermore, the Court does
not articulate a clear standard of proof according to which it
might weigh the evidence presented by the parties, making its
factual findings difficult to disentangle from its legal conclusions....
June 14, 2007
Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior
Abstract:
As NATO has moved from being a primarily military alliance to seeking more political roles, it has become pertinent to consider its impact on democratisation. At first glance, it might seem incongruent even to deliberate on the democracy promotion relevance of an essentially military organisation. But, NATO's successive enlargements have often hinged on the
fulfilment of democratic preconditions in aspirant members, while technical assistance provided under the Partnership for Peace (PfP) and other programmes has increasingly focused on the reform of civil-military relations. Assessment is consequently warranted of whether NATO has come to play any positive role in
encouraging democratisation across different regions, or whether its impact on political liberalisation has been either marginal or even negative. This paper argues that support for democracy has increasingly infused NATO policies, but that the organisation's role in democracy promotion is circumscribed by strategic considerations; most often an indirect side effect of
other aims; and most relevant to the niche area of defence reform....
April 2, 2007
Conflict Studies Research Centre
Abstract:
The recent history of the Balkans suggests that the easiest way to challenge regional stability is combining a bad economic and social situation with oppressive national identity politics. After the proclamation of independence, the problem of identity has dominated the Montenegrin political scene. Ethnic groups are becoming increasingly politicised. The ruling Montenegrin elite sees no need for dialogue. Issues like the new constitution, symbols of the state and the church are highly volatile and could lead to new conflicts. Corruption, organised crime and absence of the rule of law still seriously threaten Montenegro's future in Europe....
November 14, 2006
United Nations // United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Abstract:
Over ten years after the signature of the Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the
wars in Bosnia and Croatia, steady progress has been made in finding durable
solutions for the hundreds of thousands of persons displaced by the wars in the former
Yugoslavia. By September 2004, returns to and within Bosnia and Herzegovina
reached the one million landmark figure. The number of persons in need of durabl#e
solutions (refugees and internally displaced) in the former Yugoslavia, which peaked
at over two million during the Bosnian crisis in 1992-95 and the Kosovo crisis in
1999, decreased to less than one million by the end of 2003 and to approximately
560,000 by mid-2006.
Yet, behind these encouraging trends, the picture is more nuanced. Most of the
refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) who found durable solutions were
those displaced by the wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia in the first half of
the 1990s. But the majority of the IDPs and refugees who fled the Kosovo province
of Serbia and Montenegro after the ousting of the Yugoslav army and the return of the
ethnic Albanian majority in mid 1999 are still in their places of displacement and the
situation of the minorities remaining in Kosovo is still precarious, as the analysis
below shows. From an institutional point of view, there is still some "unfinished
business"1 in the Western Balkans: in June 2006 Montenegro declared independence
and was admitted to the UN, spelling the end of the State Union of Serbia and
Montenegro, a loose confederation that replaced the remnants of the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia. The final status of the Kosovo province of Serbia is also being
discussed, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1244.
As result of this situation, UNHCR's operations in the Western Balkans are centred
on two themes: "Post-Dayton" refugees and IDPs (from the wars in Croatia and
Bosnia) and refugees and IDPs from Kosovo. A third theme, beyond the scope of this
paper, is the development of asylum legislation and procedures in accordance with
international standards, in line with UNHCR's traditional mandate....
August 2, 2006
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
This working document is part of a research project for the Office for Scientific, Technical
and Cultural Affairs, the department of the Belgian Federal Government responsible for
scientific research. The project is carried out by the Centre for Political Science (POLI) of the
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (by Bruno Coppieters, Michel Huysseune, Tamara Kovziridze and
Theo Jans) and the Centre for European Policy Studies (by Michael Emerson, Elena
Prokhorova, Gergana Noutcheva, Nathalie Tocci and Marius Vahl). It makes a comparative
assessment of the potential for supra-national and international settlement in four secessionist
conflicts at the periphery of the EU. It focuses on the potential role that institutional models
from the EU and its members can play in the design of solutions to such conflicts -
particularly the federation institutions such as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) or the Council of Europe. In all of these cases, conflict settlement may
have to be facilitated by the intervention of third party actors....
Montenegro 
