Sowing the Seeds of Independence: Chicago-Kent Receives Presidential Honor from Kosovo

The Republic of Kosovo has awarded its Presidential Medal of Merits to Chicago-Kent College of Law for its “contribution and dedication to academic growth in Kosovo.” 

Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani Sadriu presented the medal to Chicago-Kent Dean Anita K. Krug at a ceremony in Prishtina, Kosovo, on February 18, 2025 . The presentation was a part of a larger celebration of the country’s 17th anniversary of its independence from Serbia.

Before Kosovo even earned its independence, former Chicago-Kent Dean Henry H. Perritt Jr. launched Operation Kosovo , a nation-building initiative to help the new government find its footing, in 1997. As part of the initiative, students helped with economic development projects and war crime tribunals, among other things.

“The Kosovo Liberation Army, the insurgency, had sort of appointed itself the interim government,” says Perritt. “We volunteered to help develop an economic development plan for Kosovo.”

The Operation Kosovo group started, even before the war, to help refugee camps, UNHCR, and journalist organizations to connect to the internet. It had to leave the country when NATO forces began bombing what was then the former country of Yugoslavia in 1999, but Perritt was back on the ground a month later. He recognized a remarkable can-do attitude just weeks after the gained its freedom in 1999.

“They had already washed all the windows, repainted all the storefronts, and collected all the trash,” he says. “They had reoccupied some of the old rundown factories and we’re trying to get them started up.”

Over the next 12–13 years, Perritt visited Kosovo twice a year, always bringing a handful of students with him.

“My students just did a great job,” Perritt says with pride. “One of them wrote a paper on legal theory that the top lawyer for the [United Nations] later told me was one of the most influential papers that had enabled the UN and others to become more active in stabilizing the Kosovo economy.”

The students weren’t taking courses while they were in Kosovo. 

Perritt says that what they did was more influential.

“We spent an afternoon with a special agent of the FBI tutoring us on how the FBI investigates governmental corruption,” he says. “Then some students wrote a paper about how to do effective anti-corruption investigations in Kosovo, and we made that available to our Kosovo friends.”

Perritt himself also published writing about his time in Kosovo. He wrote a book, titled Kosovo Liberation Army: The Inside Story of an Insurgency, that compiled stories that he heard from soldiers who fought in the war for independence.

“They didn’t have any guns, but there were guns in Albania,” says Perritt. “They walked across the mountains  into Albania and came back with maybe a dozen rifles on their backs. In one case, a young man didn’t have anything except some track shoes that he wore while crossing the mountains. And there were just dozens upon dozens of stories like that.”

Perritt also wrote a rock opera, titled You Took Away My Flag, about the Kosovo Liberation Army that was performed in Chicago 57 times.

“It got a fair amount of publicity,” he says, laughing. “It was not a commercial success, but it was fun.”

As UN envoy Martti Ahtissarri brokered talks about independence, he convinced Perritt to write another book, titled The Road to Independence for Kosovo: A Chronicle of the Ahtisaari Plan, which analyzed events from the end of the war to the declaration of independence on February 17, 2008.

Even after Perritt’s Operation Kosovo  ended, Chicago-Kent has continued to support Kosovo. The school has a generous scholarship program that allows Kosovo students to pursue their LL.M. degrees at the school, and many of these LL.M. graduates have returned to Kosovo where they continue to make contributions to the country’s development.  

Two Kosovo students are enrolled in the school this year, and Krug will continue to provide pathways for Kosovar lawyers to pursue opportunities at Chicago-Kent.

“Chicago-Kent’s 25 years of work to assist a turbulent region, and its ongoing efforts to create opportunities for the Kosovar people is truly inspiring,” she says. “It is yet another reason why I am grateful to be affiliated with the institution and why I believe we should all be proud.”

Photo: Chicago-Kent Dean Anita Krug accepts the Presidential Medal of Merits from Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani Sadriu [provided]