THE HAGUE: Serbian justice experts today challenged the legality of Kosovo’s secession, as the International Court of Justice opened hearings into Pristina’s decision to break away in 2008.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, arriving in The Hague where his country’s delegation opened proceedings, expressed confidence that the top UN court would back Serbia’s bid to hold on to its southern region.

“We expect that international law will be upheld,” he told AFP, repeating Belgrade’s line that Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence on February 17, 2008 was simply illegal. “We trust international law.” The hearings in the Netherlands will run until December 11 and include testimony from 29 nations. The court will not hand down any verdict, but give an “advisory opinion” on the move, which could come in a few months.They are to address the question of the “accordance with international law of the unilateral declaration of independence by the provisional institutions of self-government of Kosovo.” The head of the Serbian delegation, Dusan Batakovic, said Kosovo’s decision was an attack on the very heart of the United Nations system.

“The unilateral declaration of independence is but an attempt to put an end to the international regime put in place for Kosovo by the UN Security Council. It is a major challenge to international order,” he said. Until early last year, Kosovo had been under UN supervision, following a NATO bombing campaign in 1999 against former Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic to stop his crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

The move by Pristina sparked an outcry from Belgrade, which considers the ethnic Albanian majority southern territory an integral part of its history and culture.

“Kosovo is the cradle of Serbia’s history and an integral part of its identity,” Batakovic told the court.

More than 60 nations have recognised Kosovo’s statehood, including 22 of the 27 members of the European Union, which launched a massive justice and police mission to help chaperone the poverty-stricken region to independence.

Russia warned that endorsing independence would set a dangerous precedent for separatists around the world, and its echoes resonated in Moscow’s backing for two rebel regions in Georgia last August.