On Wednesday of this week, the General Assembly of the United Nations is scheduled to debate—and probably to vote on—Serbia’s proposal that the legality of Kosovo’s independence be referred to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Ten years after thousands of young Kosovar Albanians risked their lives to fight against Slobodan Milosevic’s oppression and to win independence, Kosovo’s young well-educated professionals are holding back Kosovo’s future by fearing to take risks.

After an initial burst of favorable international publicity over Kosovo’s declaration of independence, Kosovo has faded to the back pages of newspapers and off the evening news. 

Ramush Haradinaj is back in Kosova, acquitted by the ICTY. Anyone who watched the trial or read the transcripts, as I have, could only conclude that the evidentiary record required acquittal. There was no evidence directly tying him to the crimes charged in his indictment.