Establishing a De Facto State through an International Process

Implementation of the Plan of 12 August 2008 and Reaffirmation of the Commitment of aU the Parties to Implement in Full all of the provisions of the Medvedev-Sarkozy six-point plan of 12 August 2008, 8 September 2008. On file with the author. 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Implementation of the Plan of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, 12 August 2008, Press Release 1321-8-092008, 8 September 2008. 

This would of course not include their status. Hence, the talks on status do not appear likely to overturn the de facto situation on the ground. Instead, the EU has in a way guaranteed its persistence, including through the deployment of a monitoring force on Georgia s side of the internal dividing line. 

Letter dated 26 March 2007 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/2007/168/Add.l. 

Overall, therefore, the Ahtisaari proposal provided Kosovo with all the competences necessary for statehood, but left it to individual states or institutions to form a view as to the statehood of the entity. This was a result of the fact that it was known that the two parties, Serbia and Kosovo, would never be able to agree on status. Ahtisaari did, however, attach to his proposal a separate recommendation to the UN Security Council. That recommendation was in favour of supervised independence, offering continued international involvement in the governance of Kosovo even after statehood.Despite the failure of the Ahtisaari process, this solution was nevertheless implemented by way of unilateral, but still supervised, independence. 

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XIII. Establishing a De Facto State through an International Process... 

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