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UN Peacebuilding Commission Guide:
Kosovo

On February 17, 2008 Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia though Serbia has vowed not to give up their former province.  This conflict has raged for a decade in the form of a civil war that has claimed 10,000 lives. Within Serbia (which included Kosovo until February of this year), the Serbs are a large ethnic majority that has attempted to cleanse the country of Albanians in the last decades.  Kosovo, however, is 88% Albanian.  Ethnic tension has long been a serious problem in the Balkans -- Yugoslavia dissolved into smaller countries along ethnic lines as each province declared independence, and much the same thing has happened to Serbia, most recently with Kosovo's declaration of independence. 

In 1999 NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a military alliance) bombed Serbia into withdrawing from Kosovo.  The UN then placed Kosovo under a transitional administration and in 2005 began a process to determine Kosovo's future status.  “Negotiations held intermittently between 2006 and 2007 on issues related to decentralization, religious heritage, and minority rights failed to yield a resolution between Serbia's willingness to grant a high degree of autonomy and the Albanians' call for full independence for Kosovo.” (CIA worldfactbook)  In other words, the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo were seeking independence from the ethnic Serbs of Serbia but the two sides have been unable to reach an agreement.  UN troops were deployed into the conflict area, and it has remained a topic of UN consideration. 

What role, if any, would the PBC play in helping build Kosovo into a country or resolve tensions between the Kosovars and the Serbs?  How would the PBC go about fulfilling whatever it determined its obligations to be? 

Some Useful Sources to Begin Your Research:

Flashpoints: World Conflicts, "Kosovo-Serbia." 

MSNBC, "Kosovo Declares Independence from Serbia."