Border Disputes in the Post-Yugoslav Space: Nation-Building between Identity Politics and International Law

Abstract

This analysis of a sample of border disputes 30 years after the beginning of Yugoslavia’s disintegration is informed by a pluri-angle analytical framework. With territorial disputes, a single reading of the phenomenon by international law with its established principles and standards of peaceful dispute settlement can be insufficient. More often than not, border disputes not only relate to territorial sovereignty per se, but also to issues of nation-building and statehood, identity narratives, ontological security, and (perceived) legitimacy as to whether a border is ‘just’. In the context of EU enlargement, the level of power (a)symmetry between actors also plays a role. Looking at the case studies (i) Croatia v. Slovenia, (ii) Serbia v. Croatia, and (iii) Serbia v. Kosovo, this paper demonstrates why States sometimes do not comply with EU conditionality and that the behaviour of State actors is by no means irrational, but can well sustain a dispute and/or pose a threat to dispute settlement by international law.