The international community's practice of administering territories in post-conflict environments has raised important legal questions. Using Kosovo as a case study, Bernhard Knoll analyses the identity of the administrating UN organ, the ways in which the territories under consideration have acquired partial subjectivity in international law and the nature of legal obligations in the fiduciary exercise of transitional administration developed within the League of Nations' Mandate and the UN Trusteeship systems. Knoll discusses Kosovo's internal political and constitutional order and notes the absence of some of the characteristics normally found in liberal democracies, before proposing that the UN consolidates accountability guidelines related to the protection of human rights and the development of democratic standards should it engage in the transitional administration of territory.

The author begins his survey by offering the reader an overview of the concepts of "physical control over a territory"" and "territorial sovereignty"". He then moves on to examine different scenarios in which territories have been administered by an organ representing the international community and explains how the issue of sovereignty was dealt with in each of these cases. In this context, the author offers a fascinating review of the recent case of Kosovo under UN administration describing the intricacies associated therewith. After thoroughly examining both the legal and factual situations, he evaluates the impact of the conclusions developed in the preceding chapters on the present and future status of this province. The author finally explores the relationship between the principle of democracy and the phenomenon of international territorial administrations, which he considers to be an example of "international governance".

Several international legal issues are related to the concept of legal personality, including the determination of international rights and duties of non-state actors and the legal capacities of transnational institutions. When addressing these issues, different understandings of legal personality are employed. These concepts consider different entities to be international persons, state different criteria for becoming one and attach different consequences to being one. In this book, Roland Portmann systematizes the different positions on international personality by spelling out the assumptions on which they rest and examining how they were substantiated in legal practice. He puts forward the argument that positions on international personality which strongly emphasize the role of states or effective actors rely on assumptions that have been discarded in present international law. The principal argument is that international law has to be conceived as an open system, wherein there is no presumption for or against certain entities enjoying international personality.

International actors have played an active role in the administration of territories over the past two centuries. This book analyses the genesis and law and practice of international territorial administration, covering all experiments from the Treaty of Versailles to contemporary engagements such as the conflict in Iraq. The book discusses the background, legal framework and practice of international territorial administration, including its relationship to related paradigms (internationalisation, mandate administration, trusteeship administration and occupation). This is complemented by a discussion of four common legal issues which arise in the context of this activity: the status of the territory under administration, the status and accountability of administering authorities, the exercise of regulatory powers by international administrations, and the relationship between international and domestic actors. Alongside surveys of the existing approaches and conceptual choices, the book also includes relevant case-law and practice and lessons learned for future engagements.

This book analyzes in a comparative way how, and to what extent, the constitutional documents governing territories administered by international organizations (the League of Nations, the UN with the OSCE, and the EU) have provided institutional prerequisites for democratic governance. Territories covered are the Free City of Danzig, the Saar Territory, the Territory of Leticia, the City of Jerusalem, the Free Territory of Trieste, the Congo, West Irian, South West Africa/ Namibia, Cambodia, Somalia, the City of Mostar, Eastern Slavonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the District of Brcko, East Timor, and Kosovo. The book begins by discussing problematic issues in international territorial administration, such as evident in the problem of the delineation of the international personality of the territories, the applicability of the concept of democracy, and the enforceability of human rights. It continues by describing the legal framework for democratic governance by delineating the scope of the authority of governance conferred upon international organizations (and/or former states) and local institutions. It applies a framework for democratic governance to the constitutional documents by analyzing to what extent they reflect basic principles of democracy, such as the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary and the principle of popular sovereignty. The documents are also compared as to provision of mechanisms of accountability and judicial review, political rights, and special participation rights for minorities in institutionalized decision-making processes. Finally, the book proposes ways by which governance in territories administered by international organizations can be democratized, such as by an increased transfer of powers and increased possibilities for popular participation in the government of the territory as well as by modifications to the institutional structures governing the territories.

Drawing on the context in which the administration of territory by international actors has resurfaced, and on the legal framework applicable to post-conflict administrations and peace-building operations, this book analyses the practice of the reconstruction processes in Kosovo, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq.