Constitutional Domestication of International Human Rights in the Kosovo Legal Order

In scrutinizing the scope and application of Articles 22 and 53 of the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo (the ‘Kosovo Constitution’ or the ‘Constitution’), this contribution focuses on the peculiar process of domestication of certain international human rights conventions, instruments and jurisprudence in the Kosovo legal order. Articles 22 and 53 of the Constitution allow for a high level of protection of individual civil and political rights, and the rights of minorities. In addition, certain economic and social rights emanate from the obligatory application of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in the Kosovo legal system. Among the eight international human rights conventions and instruments listed in Article 22 of the Kosovo Constitution, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Kosovo (Constitutional Court) and
mixed panels of EULEX77 judges apply extensively the European Convention
on Human Rights (ECHR) and the jurisprudence of the European Court of
Human Rights (‘ECtHR’ or the ‘Strasbourg Court’). A very scarce application
of Articles 22 and 53 of the Kosovo Constitution in the jurisprudence of the
local judges of Kosovo regular courts signals that they are not yet capable of
coping with the judicial application of international human rights.