Kosovo’s declaration of sovereignty this weekend carries enormous meaning in terms of international legal precedent. Timothy Waters, who helped prepare the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic, has a column on the JURIST exploring the significance of this breaking news, and Russia’s efforts to lobby the United Nations to deny independence:

Should Kosovo be recognized as an independent state? There are compelling arguments on both sides. The commitments the U.S., European States and Russia made in the Helsinki Final Act, for example, suggest that Serbia’s territorial integrity must be respected, as does Security Council Resolution 1244, which created the international protectorate over Kosovo and laid the legal groundwork for the final status process. Russia further claims that 1244 only authorized a UN administration – and therefore the planned handover to an EU supervisory mission is illegal – and that the since the resolution is still in force and has not been superseded by any other Security Council action, the Kosovo Assembly’s action is in violation of 1244.