The UN court issued its non-binding ruling on 22 July, deeming that Kosovo did not violate international law when it claimed secession from Serbia in February 2008 (EurActiv 23/07/10).
Yet Professor Varady, who criticised the court's ''narrow'' decision, believes that the issue of Kosovo's independence should have been settled following the 1998-1999 war between ethnic Albanians and Serbian security forces, when Slobodan Milošević was still in charge.
''If there was a concept of having an independent Kosovo, it is really odd that Kosovo was not taken away from Milošević. This is difficult for me to understand, because that would have created a completely different situation in the Balkans,'' he said.
''Instead, the burden was shifted to the new, still fragile, post-Milošević governments. They were expected to contribute towards the creation of an independent Kosovo. This is politically clearly impossible,'' he went on.
Varady, formerly the chief legal representative of Serbia, believes that the new governments would have been unhappy about the split, but it would have been resolved. ''But instead you had Resolution 1244, which clearly [establishes] Kosovo as an autonomous region within Serbia. It's really difficult to understand why such an approach was taken,'' he lamented.
Meanwhile, the professor is certain that the ICJ's ruling will encourage secessionist endeavours in other parts of the world and dismissed the argument that Kosovo is a unique case.
In his view, the opinion would ''certainly give very strong encouragement to Abkhazia, Ossetia, the Basque region. This argument that this is not a precedent is not a plausible argument. You cannot place the International Court of Justice outside the world of consistency,'' he insisted.
Court ruling 'avoided the real issues'
Varady was dissatisfied with the ICJ ruling and believes that the court's narrow, technical focus meant that it did not answer the real questions – Kosovo's right to self-determination and the territorial integrity of Serbia.
''One of the key arguments made, particularly by the Kosovo party, was the right to self-determination: opposed to that was Serbia's point of the territorial integrity of the state […] The court found that it would not consider these issues as relevant. Instead it focused simply on the text of the declaration," Varady said.
"This is a little bit difficult because the text itself has no meaning without a context. The context cannot simply be perceived without considering self-determination, without considering territorial integrity,'' he stated.
''The court also stated explicitly that it would not consider the issue whether such a declaration may produce statehood. But the purpose of the declaration is to produce statehood,'' he added.
In Varady's view, the court narrowed its focus radically in order to secure a majority in a very difficult situation. For him, the ICJ ''managed to avoid difficulties but also managed to avoid the main issue''.
