Constitutional law professor Siniša Karan stated that Republika Srpska is a state-bearing entity with its own sovereignty and is a signatory to all 11 annexes of the Dayton Agreement. He emphasized that these are historical and well-known facts that deeply trouble those who interpret and cherish the statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In his column regarding the conclusions of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) in BiH, which criticized Republika Srpska and its political leadership, Karan stressed that the PIC is nothing more than an anti-Dayton and undemocratic ad hoc group of countries without legal authority, leading proponents of the unitarization of BiH.
Here is the full column by Professor Karan for SRNA:
Complex state communities, characterized by multiconfessionalism, multiculturalism, and multiethnicity, require a complex democratic identity and legitimacy that matches such a multifaceted structure of state organization.
The formation of a federation arises from the need of a specific society and state to organize in a way that suits conditions demanding federalism as an option for state structure.
Primarily, federal relations should reflect the principle of organization where a compromise between the demands for union on one side and territorial diversity and autonomy within the federation on the other side is achieved.
This balance is established by creating a unique political system where both central and regional authorities are given the necessary general powers, ensuring that no system of governance is legally or politically subordinate to another.
We must also highlight the historical foundation of the federal arrangement of BiH. In terms of its state structure and the manner of its formation, BiH is a specific state community consisting of two entities: Republika Srpska (a simple entity) and the Federation of BiH (a complex entity).
Such a solution has a compromise character, considering that by the end of 1992, three state-forming entities were created and coexisted on the territory of BiH: the Republic of BiH (Muslim, i.e., Bosniak part), Republika Srpska (Serb part), and Herzeg-Bosnia (Croat part). All three entities had the characteristics of national states, each with its own territory, organization of power, military, police, currency, and other state institutions and symbols.
BiH Formed by the Method of Aggregation
Therefore, BiH was formed by the method of aggregation. Despite the international community recognizing BiH as an independent state, this state did not function effectively since late 1991, as its institutions divided along national lines and did not exercise effective power over the entire territory of BiH. Sovereign authority, as an essential characteristic of any state, did not exist, so there can be no talk of state-legal continuity of BiH.
Thus, the Dayton Peace Agreement, as an act of international law, established BiH as a democratic and complex state composed of two equal, unique, and state-bearing entities – Republika Srpska and the Federation of BiH, which lost their state-legal properties and were established as entities at the level of highly autonomous federal units, with very extensive competencies.
In BiH, considering its multinational composition, the determination of the holder of sovereignty combined the ethnic (national) principle, the entity principle, and the citizen principle. The 1995 Constitution of BiH (Dayton Peace Agreement, Annex 4) primarily highlights the national, entity, and citizen principles of sovereignty, specifically stating in the preamble of the BiH Constitution that Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs, as constituent peoples, together with others and citizens, establish and adopt the Constitution of BiH.
BiH is an Asymmetrical Federation, Attempted Domination Makes Its Future Highly Uncertain
Given that one entity is organized unitarily and the other federally, BiH is actually an asymmetrical federation.
Furthermore, the composition, manner of election, and decision-making process of BiH’s political institutions significantly confirm the federal nature of its state structure through the paritarian composition of certain institutions (House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, Presidency, Council of Ministers of BiH), as well as the extensive use of consensus or veto rights.
Any attempt to establish relations leading to the domination of one people over the other two is doomed to fail and as such destroys the essence and nature of the alliance of diversity on which such states are based.
The fundamental, constitutional, i.e., Dayton federal form of BiH is the only form of federal relations that offers hope for the survival of such a community as BiH. However, tendencies to disrupt the balance and attempts at domination currently in play inevitably make the future highly uncertain.
Source: RTRS
