Talk:Serbia and Montenegro

Legal succession 2006

Legal succession after this country needs to be mentioned in the article but I am unable to find good sources for it. This UN source mentions legal succession but it is a bit unclear and contradictory:

There are four possible options of what happened regarding the legal succession in 2006: 1) no legal successor(s), 2) Serbia as the sole legal successor, 3) Montenegro as the sole legal successor, 4) Montenegro and Serbia as legal successors.

Seems this country ceased to exit in 2006 with its sole legal successor being Serbia – is that so? I need to find sources for this. Please help me.92.63.48.182 (talk) 05:07, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Obviously, the entity called most recently "Serbia and Montenegro", a federation of both Serbia and Montenegro, dissolved. Serbia is still Serbia, Montenegro is still Montenegro. There is no legal successor nor does there need to be one. Str1977 ^(talk) 20:54, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

@Str1977: Here is your source, Serbia is the legal successor of Serbia and Montenegro

"In a letter dated 3 June 2006, the President of the Republic of Serbia informed the Secretary-General that the membership of Serbia and Montenegro was being continued by the Republic of Serbia, following Montenegro's declaration of independence". The UN accepted this, as the UN members list states that Serbia joined the UN on 1st of November 2000. ImStevan (talk) 18:13, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

While that makes Serbia the diplomatic successor, the term "legal succession" however is all too often misunderstood. We have to be clear that Serbia is not the same as Yugoslavia/Serbia and Montenegro. Just like Russia and the Soviet Union aren't the same, wheras Germany has been one state from 1871 until present day (with the East Germany being the exception). Str1977 ^(talk) 18:13, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

References

Language

@Vipz: To answer your [1]: No, the Constitutional Charter of Serbia and Montenegro was a constitution per se, not an amendment to the actual Constitution. Vanjagenije (talk) 23:50, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Split

Not only did the name change in 2003, but also how the country works as a single entity, creating unnecesary confusion in the infobox. Furthermore, the history of FR Yugoslavia is so packed that I don't think an article that presents it together with Serbia and Montenegro can do either of them justice, as there is a lot more to say about one than the other ImStevan (talk) 10:29, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Do not split. There was no "Yugoslavia" that ceased to exist in 2003. You would confuse a plenty more users who learn that Yugoslavia broke up in 1991/92 by not straight up informing them the 1992–2003 "Yugoslavia" consisted of only two former republics of the real Yugoslavia, and that this remained a single country until 2006 despite a system of government and name change. Keep integrity. –Vipz (talk) 04:07, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Vipz that in that this will further confuse readers learning about the downfall of Yugoslavia and the Balkan wars. An article dedicated to the country itself from 1992-2003 can be problematic and bring instability. If your aim is to create an article on the government as an entity itself as opposed to the country, Government of Yugoslavia is currently a redirect to Yugoslavia with possibilities, but you may need to clarify as FR Yugoslavia. BurgeoningContracting 13:49, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Similar proposals (either to split the article or to rename it) were made in the past and all of them were rejected. Vacant0 (talk) 18:16, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

No split as per above, it's too confusing, since its name was also Yugoslavia at one point, but was not related to the communist Yugoslavian government. TomMasterReal^TALK 02:13, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think it would necessarily be particularly confusing to separate this article into two, especially if information on shared succession of previous SFRY and the fact that FRY was a new state is clearly and explicitly stated very early in article's intro. I actually see the current option as a bit more confusing considering that the 2003 reform was indeed substantial. The fact that the article was not split before doesn't necessarily mean that such a choice was the right one or that it was made with the full understanding of the issue (I don't know if there are links to those discussions?). Interestingly, probably all Wikipedia editions from the region treat this content as two different articles (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian... Wikipedias). I don't know if I am omitting some important arguments on why this should remain as one article but I am of course willing to consider any strong points you may have.--MirkoS18 (talk) 23:13, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

The issue is WP:COMMONNAME - the use of the name "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" was not actually really appreciated in the international community throughout the period of the sanctions against Yugoslavia. I've posted some more info about this at Talk:May 1992 Yugoslavian parliamentary election#Requested move 3 November 2023. So the country spent the first 9 years of its existence trying to usurp the name Yugoslavia and being consistently denied, then after the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević everyone else finally started tolerating it as FRY, but after just 2 years it did change the name to Serbia and Montenegro, and in turn after another 3 years it had Montenegro secede. Also, the regional Wikipedias have consistently been plagued with horrific quality issues, so to consider anything they did as having any more weight over any policy-based considerations at the well-regulated English Wikipedia would honestly in my mind be a gross violation of WP:CIRCULAR and WP:ARBMAC. --Joy (talk) 11:53, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Also, the name "Serbia and Montenegro" was used even before 2003, see this example from 1993. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 06:36, 2 January 2024 (UTC)