Capacity building in Kosovo

Kosovo differs from all other countries surveyed so far in the pages of this journal in that it has no defined and internationally recognised final shape – either in respect of its borders or in the composition of its government. As the territory prepares for independence, Alan Osborn considers the state of its money laundering controls.

After the war

Seven years after NATO intervened to free the country from the hard-line Serb nationalist regime of Slobodan Milosevic, there are still more than 16,000 NATO troops in Kosovo and the administration in the capital Pristina is in the hands of the United Nations. A settlement brokered by the UN between Serbia and the ethnic Albanian leadership in Pristina over the future of the country is still officially hoped for this year but the signs are not at all promising and it remains unclear whether or not an independent sovereign Kosovo will emerge in 2007, armed with fully functioning anti-money laundering and terrorist finance institutions and laws.