МЕЖДУНАРОДНОЕ ПРАВО; ЕВРОПЕЙСКОЕ ПРАВО THE LAW APPLICABLE TO THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF KOSOVO: STILL A PUZZLING ISSUE A. Pietrobon The Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies University of Padova 28, Via del Santo, Padova, Italy, 35123 The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the declaration of independence of Kosovo has left some crucial questions open. <...> The main steps of the Court’s reasoning are re-examined in the article, the most delicate issue being the relationship between international law and domestic law. <...> In particular, the exclusion of the possibility for international law to produce effects at the individual level - that was determinant to the conclusion reached in the Advisory Opinion - is questionable. <...> Key words: international law, domestic law, acts of the UN, domestic jurisdiction, direct effects of international law norms. 1. <...> The question raised by the General Assembly of the United Nations The opinion of the International Court of Justice «on the conformity of the unilateral declaration of independence in respect of Kosovo» has deserved great attention and much criticism [13]. <...> A few years afterwards, this article will rather consider the logical structure of the complex reasoning of the Court, about which other reasons for perplexity might be raised, not concerning the content of the final answer to the question, but rather some logical steps and some theoretical assumption used to reach it. <...> The question put to the Court by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) was: «Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of SelfGovernment of Kosovo in accordance with international law?» [32]. <...> The Court understands the question as calling for an investigation into the existence, in international law, of a prohibition to declaring independence: the sources of international law are taken into consideration, from which a norm containing such a prohibition could be deduced. <...> First of all, general international law is considered and the Court observes that it does not include any provision setting such a prohibition, there are no difficulties to Pietrobon A. The law applicable to the declaration of independence of Kosovo… 21 such an assessment, given that there is no relevant practice of States, nor a consistent opinio iuris. <...> Then the Court, already dealing with a more delicate issue, declares that the prohibition cannot be deduced, as an implicit corollary, from the general rule protecting the territorial integrity <...>