The defense of the Dayton Peace Agreement and its annexes represents the protection of the foundations of a functional, stable, and legally regulated Bosnia and Herzegovina, emphasized constitutional law professor Siniša Karan.
“Dayton was signed at the moment when all sides received the minimum of their historical demands. No one emerged as a victor, but everyone accepted compromise — and that is precisely why the agreement has lasted for three decades,” Karan told Srna on the 30th anniversary of the Dayton Agreement.
He noted that Republika Srpska has spent 30 years in a legal, institutional, and democratic fight to preserve the original agreement, which is its constitutional obligation — because a BiH in which some rule while others are expected only to nod their heads cannot survive.
“Dayton is not the problem of BiH; the problem is those who want to annul and dismantle it,” Karan stressed.
When hearing today’s calls for a “more functional BiH Constitution,” Karan says a simple question must be asked: What exactly hides behind this seemingly harmless phrase? Constitutional language, he warns, often masks real political intentions.
He described the unitarist concept of a “civic state,” pushed by political Sarajevo and backed by high representatives who imposed 913 decisions — all against Srpska — as an attempt to reshape historical reality through constitutional engineering.
This creates the illusion that BiH can be redesigned without compromise, without respecting its complex ethnic structure, and without acknowledging a basic truth: BiH functions only as long as no one has the power to outvote another.
Karan emphasized that Dayton’s architecture is not accidental — it is a product of history, complex negotiations, and international verification of compromise.
He added that Republika Srpska rests on four pillars and three principles that have proven more durable than any later political pressure. These are not political slogans but the formula that keeps BiH in balance.
Republika Srpska, he said, is not an administrative unit, but a political expression of a people who, when faced with historical challenges, organized their community and shaped their institutions.
Dayton is an international agreement, part of international law, and as such cannot be arbitrarily interpreted or rewritten. From that stems the fact that the status of Republika Srpska is not a political privilege but an internationally guaranteed reality.
He also stressed that economic self-sufficiency is essential for institutional sovereignty, meaning that without economic strength there can be no strong institutions — and that development policy is the most concrete method of preserving the Dayton order.
BiH, as a complex state, does not function through uniformity but through a precise balance — parity, consensus, and division of competencies:
- Parity ensures equality of entities and constituent peoples. It is not an obstacle but a guarantee of peace.
- Consensus prevents any nation from being outvoted on matters essential to its identity — not a blockade, but a protective mechanism.
- Division of competencies between the entity and joint level reveals the true structure of BiH — an asymmetric federation with confederal elements.
Republika Srpska, within this framework, possesses a status “more than ordinary autonomy and just short of a fully independent state,” yet strong enough to protect its constitutional integrity.
The narrative that Dayton “slows Bosnia down” is, according to Karan, merely a political mask intended to elevate one nation to dominance while reducing the other two to decorative elements.
“That is a major obstacle to the survival of BiH. And if BiH is to survive for the good of all three constituent peoples, it can only survive as a Dayton-based BiH,” concluded professor Siniša Karan.
Source: RTRS
