The affirmation by the International Court of Justice on July 22 of the February 2008 unilateral declaration of independence by the Republic of Kosovo is a welcome affirmation of the democratic principle of people's self-determination, but by itself does not offer a clear path for international recognition of Taiwan's own status as a democratic independent state.
Kosovo, previously an autonomous province of Serbia and formerly an autonomous province in the defunct Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, has a population of some two million people, 90 percent are of Albanian ancestry.