PART III POSTCONFLICT ADMINISTRATIONS IN PRACTICE
1. Kosovo: Replacing Parallel Structures
UNMIK’s second pillar, ‘Civil Administration’, under the direct leadership of the UN, was entrusted with the civil administration of the Province, and was the
465 The issue of housing and property restitution has been the object of several interesting works entirely dedicated to it. See for example, Buyse, A., Post-Conflict Housing Restitution. The European Human Rights Perspective, with a Case Study on Bosnia and Herzegovina (Antwerpen:
Intersentia, 2008) and Van Houtte, H., Delmartino, B. and Iasson, Y., Post-War Restoration of Property Rights under International Law: Volume 1: Institutional features and Substantive Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) and Das, H. and Van Houtte, H., Post-War Restoration of Property Rights under International Law: Volume 2: Procedural Aspects (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008).
UN’s primary responsibility. Security Council Resolution 1244 asked UNMIK to “[perform] basic civilian administrative functions where and as long as required”.466 The reinstatement of essential public services was quickly dealt with.
The restoration of power, water and heating was rapidly, but partially, achieved in the first months after UNMIK’s arrival, although serious breakdowns often occurred.467 Many schools were immediately reopened throughout the country, while the physical reconstruction of damaged buildings had already started in October 1999.468 All hospitals were equally reopened soon after UNMIK’s deployment, and were managed by international staff to fill the vacuum caused by the emergency.469 A separate authority for post and telecommunications was established as early as October 1999.470
As UNMIK was the first mission of its kind in recent years, staff had to be recruited on a case by case basis, the same problem UNTAET would be faced with a few months later.471 The slow deployment of UNMIK outside the capital had led to the resurgence of parallel structures, mainly operated through the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA/UCK). These parallel administrations collected tax revenues and operated health and educational services.472 UNMIK responded to these shadow structures by introducing a municipal administrative framework, the ‘Joint Interim Administrative Structure’ (JIAS), aimed at implementing official policies in the provinces and integrating members of these parallels structures.473 The municipal authorities were integrated in the JIAS, which explicitly required the dissolution of parallel entities by January 2000.474 The problems of parallel administrative structures nevertheless continued throughout UNMIK’s admin- istration. While Kosovo Albanians’ parallel structures such as schools have been
466 SC Res. 1244, UN Doc. S/RES/1244 (1999), para. 11, b).
467 See on the relation between the energy sector and economy Caplan, R., International Govern- ance of War-Torn Territories: Rule and Reconstruction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 139–140.
468 Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, UN Doc. S/1999/987 (16 September 1999), paras. 21–2.
469 Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, UN Doc. S/1999/1250 (23 December 1999), para. 37.
470 UNMIK Regulation 1999/12 on the provision on postal and telecommunications services in Kosovo, UN Doc. UNMIK/REG/1999/12 (14 October 1999).
471 In May 2000, almost a year after UNMIK’s establishment, the civil administration pillar had a staff of 292 internationals out of the 435 envisaged. See Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, UN Doc. S/2000/538 (6 June 2000), para. 28.
472 OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Department of Human Rights and Rule of Law, ‘Parallel Structures in Kosovo’ (October 2003).
473 Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. S/1999/1250, supra note 469, para. 35.
474 Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, UN Doc. S/2000/177 (3 March 2000), para. 12.
satisfactorily integrated in the official administration, Serb parallel structures, mainly property registration and schools, persisted in the Serb municipalities because of ethnical bias within the official structures and Serbian interference in UNMIK’s administration.475
When UNMIK arrived, Kosovo completely lacked any local civil administra- tion, as a consequence of the departure of all Yugoslav administrators and civil servants. The ethnical bias towards Kosovo Serbs, who were a majority in the former civil service, would in any case have necessitated a complete reform of the administration. UNMIK quickly involved the local population, especially Kosovo Albanians, in the area of civil administration. Following the signature of an agreement on 15 December 1999, the first Kosovar multi-ethnic governmental structure was created, the already mentioned Joint Interim Administrative Struc- ture (JIAS), aimed at giving the Kosovars a direct input into UNMIK decision- making.476 The structure comprised three main bodies – the Kosovo Transitional Council, the Interim Administrative Council and administrative departments. The administrative departments were co-headed by local and international officials.
The first operational departments were those relating to civil administration:
Health and Social Welfare, Education and Science, Local Administration and the Central Fiscal Authority.477 Kosovo Serbs were very reluctant to join the interim institutions, and withdrew shortly after the creation of the first interim structures.478 By May 2000, the Joint Interim Administrative Structure’s departments already employed 58.300 local staff, although at the senior level local capacity building was slower.479 In order to bolster local capacity while preserving and ensuring the multi-ethnical character of Kosovo, UNMIK drafted a regulation laying the basis for recruitment into the civil service.480 Besides establishing the conditions for recruitment procedures, the regulation contains in an annex a short ‘Civil Service Code of Conduct’ to be respected by all civil servants. An ‘Institute for
475 OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Department of Human Rights and Rule of Law, ‘Parallel Structures in Kosovo’ (October 2003).
476 UNMIK Regulation 2000/1 on the approval Kosovo Joint Interim Administrative Structure, UN Doc UNMIK/REG/2000/1 (14 January 2000).
477 Civil administration was later handled by the Institutions of Provisional Self-Government, instituted under the ‘Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-Government’. See UNMIK Regulation 2001/19 on the executive branch of the provisional institutions of self-government in Kosovo, UN Doc. UNMIK/REG/2001/19 (13 September 2001).
478 Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. S/1999/1250, supra note 469, para. 3.
479 Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, UN Doc. S/2002/1126 (9 October 2002), para. 9.
480 UNMIK Regulation 2001/36 on the Kosovo Civil Service, UN Doc. UNMIK/REG/2001/36 (22 December 2001).
Civil Administration’, led by the OSCE, was equally set up to conduct training sessions for civil servants.481
As briefly mentioned, a recurrent component of post-conflict reconstruction is the setting up of claims commissions in order to establish property rights and provide compensation for those who lost them under former discriminatory laws.
Following NATO’s armed intervention, Serbian officials withdrew completely from Kosovo, taking with them the entire collection of cadastral documents.482 UNMIK therefore decided to create an internationalised ‘Housing and Property Claims Commission’483 in conjunction with a registration office, the ‘Housing and Property Directorate’.484 The great importance of this commission in the reconstruction process can easily be illustrated by the number of submitted claims: by the end of June 2003 – the deadline for the submission of claims – the Commission had received 28,587 claims in addition to the 3,000 proper- ties placed under the Commission’s administration. The handling of the claims was less of a success, at least in the early days. By September 2002, only 644 of the 19,862 claims had been resolved and only 322 decisions implemented – less than 2 per cent.485 The underestimate of the importance of the number of claims received by the Claims Commission required the permanent availability of external funding to enable all the claims to be adjudicated upon.486 On 6 June 2006 the Housing and Property Claims Commission had finally adjudicated on all received claims at first instance, and was replaced by the new ‘Kosovo Property Claims Commission’, composed of Kosovars only.487
UNMIK’s capacity to engage in the rapid, although partial, restoration of essential services needs to be highlighted, especially considering the generally alarming condition of public companies in Kosovo. The basic rehabilitation of
481 Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission on Kosovo, UN Doc. S/2002/62 (15 January 2002), para. 34.
482 Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, UN Doc. S/2001/926 (2 October 2001), para. 17.
483 See in general on this: Das, H. and Van Houtte, H., Post-War Restoration of Property Rights under International Law: Volume 2: Procedural Aspects (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 16 et s.
484 UNMIK Regulation 1999/23 on the establishment of the housing and property directorate and the housing and property claims commission, UN Doc. UNMIK/REG/1999/23 (15 Nov.
1999). For an overview through a human rights lens see OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Depart- ment of Human Rights and Rule of Law, ‘Property Rights in Kosovo’ (30 June 2003).
485 Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, UN Doc. S/2002/1126 (9 October 2002), para. 41.
486 Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission on Kosovo, UN Doc. S/2006/906 (20 November 2006), para. 78.
487 Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission on Kosovo, UN Doc. S/2007/395 (29 June 2007), Annex I, para. 65.
the civil service sector was immediate, and progressed well during the mission’s presence.488 UNMIK also swiftly integrated local actors in the civil administration departments, by increasing local ownership over essential civil services to pave the way for a transfer to the local administration. Local capacity-building has been slow but promising, although in the field of minority employment efforts need to be sustained. It should however be noted that recreating a functioning civil administration from scratch necessitates long-term commitments. Emergency measures to ensure rapid rehabilitation are paramount, but reforms require a continuing engagement. The 2006 decentralisation exercise in Kosovo was for instance difficult to achieve.489 In addition, the IMF recommended headcount reduction resulted in a hiring freeze from 2006 in order to keep expenditure under control.490 This shows that sustainability requires long-term strategic plan- ning and continuing international assistance and support.