A Right to Self-Determination for the Kosovo Albanians?

Abstract

The international community's response to recent events in Eastern Europe might suggest that the right to self-determination is evolving in such a manner that it can be invoked by territorially cohesive, ethnic groups within States. The present analysis of whether the Kosovo Albanians have a right to internal and/or external self-determination tends to cast doubt on whether this evolution is taking place. While the international response to the Kosovo crisis may contribute to an emerging norm against the oppression of minorities it is doubtful whether it extends the right to self-determination beyond the existing beneficiaries of the right, namely, peoples organized as States and colonial peoples.