Self-determination and the dissolution of Yugoslavia

The collapse of Yugoslavia provided the first instance of state dissolution in Europe since World War II. International organizations had little to guide their responses to the crisis. In measuring the rival claims of state integrity and of self-determination of peoples, international bodies followed the uti possidetis principle deriving from the period of decolonization. Once the dissolution of the state was pronounced, its internal boundaries assumed the character of international ones. The Badinter Committee, appointed to assist arbitration between the parties to the conflict, additionally made a demonstrable act of self-determination a precondition for the recognition of new states. As a consequence of its deliberations, the Badinter Committee may have provided not only a method of regulating state-succession bur also a mechanism for accomplishing state disintegration, particularly in the case of federations. Additionally, by assuming that the population of the subunit is possessed of the right of self-determination in the event of state dissolution, the Badinter Committee may have inadvertently extended the definition of 'people' to include all groups dwelling within legally defined territories.