According to UNSCR 1244, ultimate authority within Kosovo resides with the UN special representative in the province, who is appointed by the UN secretary-general. The special representative, who also serves as chief of UNMIK, is responsible for implementing civilian aspects of the agreement ending the Kosovo conflict in 1999. Kosovo’s government currently consists of what are called the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government, including a 120-seat Assembly whose members are popularly elected and serve three-year terms. Twenty seats in the Assembly are reserved for representatives of ethnic minorities. The Assembly elects a president, who also serves a three-year term. According to Kosovo’s Constitutional Framework, the president nominates the prime minister, and parliament is required to approve the nomination.

Elections in Kosovo in the post-1999 period, organized by the international community, have been considered generally free and fair. However, given the large role played by international officials in the province’s administration, the lack of freedom of movement for ethnic minorities in Kosovo, and problems related to the ability of women to participate in the political process, the actual level of democratization in Kosovo remains low. In the October 2004 parliamentary elections, 32 political parties or independent candidates participated, and 54 percent of the 1,300,000 eligible voters in Kosovo turned out. The elections were marred, however, by the fact that 99 percent of the Serbs in Kosovo boycotted the elections. Local elections foreseen for 2006 were postponed by the Special Representative of the UN secretary-general for up to 12 months.

Throughout the post-1999 period, the main political parties in Kosovo have been late President Ibrahim Rugova’s LDK, which enjoys 45 to 60 percent of the popular vote in general and municipal elections; the PDK, led by former KLA political leader Hashim Thaci, which garners 25 to 30 percent; and the AAK, led by former prime minister and KLA commander Ramush Haradinaj, which usually gains 7 to 8 percent. Kosovo’s political system remained based on clan and regional ties, complicating the effort to create a stable, democratic government. The PDK, for instance, drew most of its support from the Drenica valley in north-central Kosovo, while the AAK got most of its votes in western Kosovo’s Dukagjin area. Serbs, when they have chosen to participate in elections, have generally voted for an umbrella organization named the “Return Coalition,” which usually captures 5 to 10 percent of the vote.

A major focus of the current effort to make progress on Kosovo’s status is the transfer of authority in various governmental fields from UNMIK agencies to local institutions. Kosovo’s civil service, however, is hampered by the fact that the various government ministries are divided among the main political parties, meaning appointments within the civil service often depend more on party connections than professional qualifications or competence. Administrative capacity at the municipal level is still weak both at the administrative and at the strategic planning level. The provisional institutions have set up an intergovernmental working group to develop a new public administration reform strategy to come into effect as of 2007. Meanwhile, Belgrade-sponsored parallel administrative structures continue to operate in most predominantly Kosovo-Serbian municipalities, including in the areas of justice, education, health care.

Corruption in Kosovo is widespread and considered to be at high levels even by regional standards. In October 2006, PDK President Hashim Thaci claimed that the threat to Kosovo society stemming from organized crime and the mafia was the biggest danger Kosovo faced. A poll released in November 2006 revealed that 82 percent of Kosovo’s residents believed there was corruption in Kosovo’s government, with the energy ministry being singled out as the most corrupt government institution.

Freedom of expression is limited because of the overall lack of security. Although a wide variety of print and electronic media operate in Kosovo, journalists report frequent harassment and intimidation. In a report on the performance of local media during the March 2004 violence, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe noted that they had engaged in “reckless and sensationalist reporting,” displayed “an unacceptable level of emotion, bias, and carelessness,” and were deserving of “the strongest criticism.” In March 2005, representatives of leading print media adopted a press code, and in October, the temporary media commissioner’s office began to phase out its supervision of print publications. In June 2005, a journalist from the newspaper Bota Sot was shot in a drive-by shooting and subsequently died of his injuries. In a move reflecting a further transfer of competencies from international officials to local bodies, in August 2006, the UNMIK’s temporary media commissioner was replaced by an Independent Media Commission, composed of five Kosovars and two internationals. There were no reports of government attempts to restrict access to the internet.

The Albanian population in Kosovo, which is predominantly Muslim, on the whole enjoys freedom of belief and religious association, but there have been consistent, systematic attacks on Orthodox Christian churches and other holy sites associated with the Serb population. During the March 2004 violence, 30 Christian churches and monasteries were destroyed or damaged. Since NATO took control of Kosovo in 1999, roughly 130 churches and other properties belonging to the Serbian Orthodox Church have been destroyed or damaged. Over the past several years, Kosovo’s small Protestant community has claimed that “Islamic extremists” were attending services so as to be able to identify worshippers and later harass them. There were also several reported incidents of attacks on Protestant places of worship.

While academic freedom has not been formally restricted, there are frequent complaints about the low academic standards and politicization of the University of Pristina. The University of Pristina operates under the authority of the provisional institutions, while Mitrovica University operates under the authority of Belgrade.

Freedom of assembly, especially in ethnic flashpoints such as the divided city of Mitrovica, is occasionally restricted by UNMIK and KFOR because of security concerns. Both domestic and foreign nongovernmental organizations generally function freely, although lack of donor funding in the past two years has forced a large number to cease operations. While current UNMIK regulations governing labor rights allow workers to join unions, there is no explicit right of association. Similarly, the law does not recognize the right to strike, but no attempts have been made to prevent workers from striking. A 2004 World Bank report claimed that the labor market functions in a virtually unregulated way, and in the absence of collective bargaining agreements, the market largely determines wages. The largest union in Kosovo, the Union of Independent Trade Unions (Albanian acronym—BSPK), claims to represent some 100,000 workers.

Kosovo lacks a functioning criminal justice system. A report issued in 2006 by Human Rights Watch noted that “rampant impunity for crime” is one of the greatest problems facing Kosovo, and a 2005 report by Kai Eide, special envoy of the UN secretary-general, said that the justice system is the weakest of the province’s institutions. Courts at all levels of the system are subject to political influence and intimidation. Ethnic Albanian judges rarely prosecute cases involving Albanian attacks on non-Albanians, and the physical safety of non-Albanian judges brought into Kosovo to try cases is difficult to guarantee. Criminal suspects arrested under the UN special representative’s power to order executive detentions are frequently released by local judges. According to the Eide report, “property rights [in Kosovo] are neither respected nor ensured.” The backlog in the civil court system stands at several tens of thousands of cases. Some 17,000 cases involving property claims were backlogged in municipal courts as of 2005, and almost all were claims by Serbs. The breakdown of normal legal and judicial institutions has resulted in an increase in the number of murders attributable to blood feuds and vendettas, carried out in accordance with a medieval Albanian legal code known as the Kanun of Lek Dukagjini. Since 1999, about 40 murders have been attributed to blood feuds. Prison conditions in Kosovo are generally in line with international standards, although prison overcrowding remains a problem.

Several leading members of the former KLA are under investigation by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for actions committed before, during, and after the NATO intervention. Testifying before the UN Security Council in June 2006, the chief prosecutor of the ICTY, Carla Del Ponte, in June 2006 claimed that UNMIK’s level of cooperation with the ICTY is the worst of any government in the region. According to Del Ponte, “the UNMIK leadership is encouraging a climate which deters witnesses from talking to my investigators when it comes to Albanian perpetrators.”

Freedom of movement continues to be a significant problem in Kosovo for ethnic minorities. In 2003, Amnesty International reported that non-Albanians in Kosovo “find themselves subjected to both direct and indirect discrimination when seeking access to basic civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights.” UNMIK has done little to promote the return of some 220,000 people the UN High Commissioner for Refugees lists as displaced from Kosovo; the 2005 Eide report noted, “[T]he overall return process has come to a virtual halt.” The position of Kosovo’s non-Serb ethnic minorities is particularly difficult. Four seats in Kosovo’s Parliament are reserved for non-Albanian and non-Serb ethnic communities such as Roma, Turks, Bosniaks, and Ashkali. As a rule, however, they generally do not get serious political support from Belgrade, and most Kosovo Albanians consider them to be Serb collaborators and frequently discriminate against them as such. In August 2006, the Commission of the European Communities reported that minority communities, mostly Serbs, face serious restrictions in freedom of movement, access to education, health care, public utilities, and social assistance due to the poor quality of services and security concerns.

In August 2006, the Commission of the European Communities reported that Kosovo is located on a heroin trafficking route, and consumption continues to increase. The same source noted that organized crime remains a serious problem in Kosovo, with criminal networks extending to various socio-economic sectors and into politics. Belgrade-sponsored parallel administrative structures regarding property registration cause legal uncertainty for property rights holders.

Gender inequality is a serious problem in Kosovo, as it is throughout the Balkans. Patriarchal societal attitudes often limit a woman’s ability to gain an education or choose her own marriage partner, and women represent a disproportionately high percentage of the unemployed. In Kosovo’s latest parliamentary elections, held in 2004, women won 29 percent of the seats, giving them 35 out of the 120 seats in the Kosovo parliament. As of 2005, and occupied 28 percent of all municipal assembly seats. Current election rules stipulate that women must occupy every third spot on each political party’s candidate list. As of November 2006, women constituted 27 percent of the judges in Kosovo, and 20 percent of the prosecutors, and 14 percent of the Kosovo Police Corps. According to the results of a study published in 2004, only half of Kosovo women between the ages of 25 and 64 have received even basic elementary education. In some rural areas of Kosovo, this figure reaches only 10 percent. In May 2006, the Education Committee in Skenderaj municipality unanimously agreed to prohibit married women from receiving a secondary education because “they should be taking care of their husbands.” Similarly, in many rural areas, women are effectively disenfranchised by “family voting,” in which the male head of a household casts ballots for the entire family. Domestic violence is an area of serious concern.

Human trafficking is a major problem in Kosovo, which serves as a place of transit, a point of destination, and a source for women and children trafficked from Eastern to Western Europe for the purpose of prostitution. The presence of a large international military force and of numerous international civilian agencies provides a relatively affluent clientele for the trafficking trade in the province. In August 2006, UNICEF reported that child trafficking in Kosovo was on the rise.