Constitution-making and statebuilding in Kosovo: we (you) the people

Abstract

How is ‘the people’ constituted in post-war, internationally administered Kosovo? As an internationalised territory and with an unresolved political status, the post-war interim constitution-making process was mainly shaped by a non-consensual idea of statehood regarding whether Kosovo was entitled to sovereign statehood. This article traces the antagonistic goals between Albanian and Serb ethnic groups within the country, on the one hand, and the international statebuilders, on the other hand, during the constitution-making process. Kosovo’s post-war constitution-making became the main instrument of an incremental international statebuilding. Although international statebuilders pursued neither a deliberative nor a consultative approach throughout the constitution-making process, they engineered a liberal constitutional content which imposed the highest standards of minority rights in post-war Kosovo.