Abstract
This Note will proceed as follows: Part I will set the stage and briefly outline the history of Kosovo and its current political status. Part II will then introduce the Kosovo Constitution and the process by which international agreements (such as the European Convention of Human Rights) were embedded in the text and made binding legal authority. It will show that, although the international agreements are binding, the Kosovo Constitution does not make international case law obligatory. Part III will then address different foundational documents drafted in anticipation of Kosovo’s statehood and how judicial and administrative institutions should apply them to legal disputes involving religion. Finally, Part IV examines some case studies from the Constitutional Court of Kosovo, including a local headscarf ban, special protective zones, and religious-community autonomy issues. These case studies will demonstrate how Kosovo has interpreted and applied foreign understandings of secularism in its constitutional and domestic law.
Recommended Citation
Thomas J. Hellenbrand,
Whose Secularism? Which Laïcité? Negotiating Transnational and National Constitutionalism in Kosovo,
97
Notre Dame L. Rev.
925
(2022).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr/vol97/iss2/9