Since the end of the Cold War, more than a dozen new or nascent states have emerged in Europe as a consequence of the break-up of three multinational federations: the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. This second ‘springtime of nations’ has proved to be more sanguinary than the first a century and a half earlier. While in most cases the establishment of new states has proceeded in a peaceful manner, in other instances it has been accompanied by violent conflict, either because the federal authorities have not acquiesced in the assertions of statehood on the part of rebel entities or because population groups within the emergent states have contested the independence claims. The wars of Yugoslav dissolution, triggered by Slovenia's and Croatia's declarations of independence on 25 June 1991, have been the most prominent example of this violent trend.

The response of the international community to the Yugoslav crisis – still ongoing – has taken many forms. One of the more controversial initiatives has been the European Community's recognition of new states in Yugoslavia beginning in December 1991. To some, EC recognition of the break-away republics was but a matter of bowing to the inevitable; to others, it was an act of reckless diplomacy. To its proponents within the Community, however, recognition was thought to have broad utility for the purpose of conflict regulation. The prospect of recognition, it was argued, might deter the Belgrade authorities from continuing to prosecute the war.