Good enough for me

Those who favor a still ill-defined but all too real “border correction/land swap” between Serbia and Kosovo are justifying it on grounds that it would be legal. I think they are right: I don’t know of anything that prohibits sovereign states from exchanging territory and people, even if it has not been done a lot lately. But let’s be clear about two things:

1. The swap would exchange human beings as well as the land they live on. That’s fine for the Serbs in northern Kosovo and the Albanians in southern Serbia. But there are also Albanians who live in the parts of northern Kosovo Serbia wants, and Serbs who live in the parts of southern Serbia that Kosovo wants. Tens of thousands are going to end up moving.
2. Mutual recognition of sovereignty and territorial integrity would have to come before the exchange. A state not recognized as sovereign would be crazy to attempt a swap with a non-recognizer.

The arguments against the land swap are not legal. They are practical and realist.

Defenders of the proposition on the Pristina side are saying it would also have to include UN membership. That is something Belgrade cannot guarantee. Only the permanent members of the Security Council could do so. I haven’t heard anything yet that suggests Russia or China is prepared to let Kosovo’s UN membership through the Security Council. Russia will seek a quid pro quo, most likely US recognition of the annexation of Crimea as well as the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Russian puppet states inside Georgia. China will hesitate because of what it perceives as Tibetan independence aspirations. The only thing worse than Kosovo independence for Beijing would be rearranging its territory on an ethnic basis.

There are also good reasons inside Serbia and Kosovo to doubt that this swap is viable. Kosovo’s main water supply is in the Serb-controlled north. Would it be prepared to see that transferred to Serbia? Serbia’s main outlet to the sea is the north/south road through southern Serbia to Thessaloniki. The Serbian army has always wanted to keep not only the road but as much territory surrounding it as possible. Are the generals suddenly willing to give in?

Any land/people swap would also raise questions about the Serb population in Kosovo south of the Ibar river, where the majority live close by the most important Serb religious sites. That population is already aging. A land swap would undermine any confidence the Kosovo Serbs south of the Ibar have in their future. It would also create temptations for radical nationalist Albanians, since they will see any land swap as prelude to union with Albania, which is what the political movement that got the second largest number of votes in the last Kosovo election wants. That movement has split, but a land swap will vastly increase the appeal of its more radical faction.

I hardly need rehearse again all the other arguments against the swap proposition: Russian President Putin would welcome it. The liberal democratic ideals of the EU and US would be weakened. Not to mention that it would put Bosnia and Herzegovina at serious risk: Republika Srpska President Dodik has made it clear he is prepared to declare independence if a land swap occurs. Serbia won’t recognize the RS as independent because that would destroy its EU ambition, but Dodik won’t care. He’ll be happy to rule a Russian-sponsored satrapy like South Ossetia and Abkhazia, so long as Moscow provides the needed rubles.

What is the alternative to a land swap? Kosovo and Serbia need to institute the political and economic reforms required for EU membership. That is far more urgent, and popular in both countries, than a land swap. The closer Serbia gets to EU membership, the greater the pressure it will feel to recognize Kosovo, without a land/people swap. That’s good enough for me.