ABSTRACT
To suggest that Kosovo is one of the most important issues to have emerged in modern international politics might at first appear to be an unduly bold claim, if not a sweeping overstatement. In an era when terrorism and the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction pose a threat to many millions of people, or when gauged against global poverty and the dangers of pandemic disease, its importance may seem rather marginal; all the more since few believe that there will be any return to the bloody regional conflicts that blighted South-East Europe throughout the 1990s. Instead, Kosovo is a crucial issue because it raises profound questions about the future of the contemporary system of international politics that was first formulated at the end of the Second World War, over sixty years ago.
