A Legal Geography of Yugoslavia's Disintegration

by Ana S. Trbovich

Overview

A Legal Geography of Yugoslavia's Disintegration explains the violent break-up of the former Yugoslavia in early 1990s in the context of two legal principles- sovereignty and the self-determination of peoples. The author recounts Yugoslavia's history, with a focus on the country's internal, administrative divisions, and aspirations of different ethnic groups in order to effectively explain the genesis of the international community's political decision to recognize the right of secession for the largest administrative units of Yugoslavia.

Trobovich, a Serbian author writing from the perspective of a disengaged scholar, tackles her subject matter with clarity and detail and offers an intriguing analysis of Kosovo's future status; international recognition of secession; implications of Yugoslavia's disintegration for other conflicts invoking right to self-determination; and international intervention in ethnic conflicts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195333435
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/05/2008
Pages:	536
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.20(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Dr. Ana S. Trbovich is the Director of the Center for European Integration and Public Administration at the Faculty of Economics, Finance and Administration in Belgrade, Serbia. She served as Serbia's Assistant Minister of International Economic Relations in charge of EU accession process from 2002 to 2006.

Editorial Reviews

"The question of the borders of a new State that emerges following secession is a matter largely ignored by scholars, especially in the context of Yugoslavia's meltdown that commenced in the 1990s. Trbovich's book fills this important gap... [Her] extensive analysis of the relevant historical, political and legal literature has produced an interdisciplinary study full of insights otherwise not available in the literature published to date. This scholarly work is a valuable addition to the existing literature on the still unfolding disintegration of Yugoslavia. Policy makers and scholars will benefit from reading it."—Peter Radan, Associate Professor of Law, Macquarie University

"Ana Trbovich's book offers a new perspective on the tangled web that the international community wove around the dissolution or destruction of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. A Legal Geography of Yugoslavia's Disintegration critically explores the complex interplay of self-determination, nationalism, the relevance of internal borders, and international politics, even as the status of Kosovo continues to bedevil policy-makers and international lawyers a decade after the Yugoslav wars were 'resolved' at Dayton in 1995. The book's analysis and conclusions will be relevant far beyond the situation of Yugoslavia, as the world seeks to develop principled criteria for dealing with secessionist claims from Somalia to Sri Lanka, Cyprus to Kurdistan."
—Hurst Hannum, University of Hong Kong

"The strength of Trbovich's book lies in her novel and interdisciplinary analysis of Yugoslavia's disintegration, and in the book's well-researched and extensive evidentiary foundation. Further, she makes a valuable contribution by placing the dissolution of Yugoslavia within the wider conceptual framework of competing rights to sovereignty and self-determination. In addition, the book provides an important balance in the historiography of the conflict, in contrast to the many studies that fail to offer an accurate background and that yield conclusions that both lack context and lead to policy prescriptions that are inherently flawed."
Angela Kachuyevski,
The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs

From the Publisher