Kosovo

• The Constitution of 2008, the highest law
• Codes and statutes, drafted with international assistance, on European models
• The European Convention on Human Rights, which the Constitution makes directly applicable
• Decisions of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court

• The Constitutional Court, which reviews laws and hears individual complaints
• The Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals
• Basic Courts, and specialised courts for commercial and administrative matters

A law degree and a bar exam, then membership of the Kosovo Chamber of Advocates.

• Its legal status and recognition are disputed internationally, though it runs its own full court system.
• International missions have helped build its judiciary and its codes.
• The Constitution gives priority to the European Convention on Human Rights and some other human-rights treaties.

Serbia, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Kosovo as: Civil law. It names the systems in order of importance. Not listed separately by JuriGlobe; classified here by the editors as civil law, in line with its Balkan civil-law neighbours.

The map colours a country by the first-named system, and shows both civil-law and common-law countries as “mixed”. It is a simplification, and real systems are rarely pure.

Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria.

• JuriGlobe: world legal systems (University of Ottawa)
• Constitute Project: constitution of Kosovo

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.