Lessons from the Balkans for American Foreign Policy: Building Civil Society Within a Multilateral Framework

I. INTRODUCTION The end of the Cold War left the world without a structure of international relations. The first Bush Administration briefly flirted with the vague idea of a New World Order. The Clinton Administration pursued a policy of selective intervention with an emphasis on development of civil society and human rights, as in Bosnia and Kosovo. The second Bush Administration came to office preaching disengagement, unilateral pursuit of US interests, suspicion of multilateralism,1 preoccupation with threats from China and Russia, and a determination to implement an unproven national missile defense system. In the war on terrorism, the Bush Administration arranged a broad coalition of states to assist in responding to the attacks of September 11th through military intervention in Afghanistan. But aside from driving the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and catching Osama Bin Laden, what shall be the course of this war? This essay, drawing on my involvement in the Balkans, suggests a strategy of engagement for US foreign policy, below and beyond the nation-state level. The United States must build civil society, rule of law, democracy, and open markets in countries that now breed terrorism, and develop a military capability to meet actual threats within a multilateral context. II. EXPERIENCE IN THE BALKANS Beginning six years ago, I organized and led two projects-Project Bosnia and operation Kosovo-which sent law students to the Balkans for one to six weeks. These students' accomplishments included aiding the Bosnian Ombudsman and Constitutional Court in obtaining US and international funds to acquire computers and connecting the International Media Center in Banja Luka, Bosnia to the Internet. They provided technical assistance to the Property Commission in Bosnia and developed plans to reduce an enormous backlog of claims by victims of ethnic cleansing. They helped the Minister of Science and Technology in Croatia write a law for regulation of the Internet; provided assistance to lawyers in Macedonia who wanted to establish a bar association; and aided in the development of a plan for an Internet-based legal information infrastructure for Albania. These students are continuing to work with young professionals in Kosovo and Albanian diaspora groups in Europe and the US to establish a Washington presence to assist the Kosovo chamber of commerce in attracting foreign capital into small and medium enterprises in Kosovo. The students also helped all the major political parties in Kosovo adopt sound market-oriented economic development policies and assisted Kosovar political candidates in gaining access to advice on how to conduct democratic political campaigns. These students did not work alone. Often, the students supplemented the American Bar Association's Central and East European Law Initiative ("CEELI"), which assigns hundreds of lawyer-volunteers for one to two years to help build ruleof-law institutions in former socialist countries. They worked closely with local Soros Open Society Institute centers on Internet connectivity, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. Other groups were also involved in the Balkans. Such efforts were just the tip of the iceberg. Non-governmental organizations ("NGOs") held coordination meetings in Sarajevo and Pristina attended by nine hundred different organizations involved in humanitarian and civil society work. We learned important lessons from Project Bosnia and Operation Kosovo. A few dozen American law students can achieve tangible results in building civil society in places that many Americans think are hopeless. My students successfully encouraged entrepreneurs to build high-tech businesses, induced new political leaders to adopt sound economic development plans, and got new legal institutions off to a good start. We learned that it is within America's capacity to assist in building civil society. …