The Dayton compromise did not fulfill all the aspirations of any nation, but this agreement, through the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, provided a structure that enabled sustainable peace and a functional union among three nations that harbor significant mistrust towards each other. For this structure to function properly, both foreign and domestic actors must respect this foundational compromise, as stated in the 32nd Report of Republika Srpska submitted to the United Nations Security Council.
“The Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina provides assurance to each constituent nation that they will not fall under the dominance of one or more other nations. This is partly achieved through consociational mechanisms that protect the interests of the constituent nations and partly through the federal structure,” the report states.
The text emphasizes that consociational and federal characteristics were essential for ending the war and are crucial for maintaining peace and stability.
“Džafer Alić, Speaker of the Assembly of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton and member of the largest Bosniak party in BiH, illustrated the attitude of many Bosniak politicians towards Croats and Serbs when he recently stated that Bosniaks are ‘the owners of this country’ and that they have ‘unwelcome tenants.’ Such attitudes among Bosniak leaders underscore the critical importance of the consociational mechanisms and federal structure guaranteed by the Constitution of BiH,” the report highlights.
The document notes that a sense of security is crucial for political progress in BiH, adding that this system contributes to the security of BiH and Europe by preventing the concentration of power in the hands of any radical political movement, whether Islamist or otherwise.
“The Dayton constitutional concept represents a major success. Contrary to many predictions, BiH has never come close to returning to conflict. Citizens in BiH live in peace and freedom. City streets are safe, and since the signing of the Dayton Agreement, there has been no significant interethnic violence in BiH. Although political differences are deep, they are resolved peacefully,” the Srpska Government’s report underscores.
The text also mentions that the GDP has increased by 38% in the past five years and that accession negotiations with the EU were opened in March.
“BiH, of course, has deep political problems, but their cause is not the consociational and federal system of BiH. Indeed, they are largely the result of disrespect for that system by certain foreign and domestic actors,” the document states.
It is crucial that domestic and international actors stop undermining the consociational mechanisms of the BiH Constitution
The Srpska Government document points out that consociational democracy is a power-sharing system that successfully preserves peace, stability, and democratic governance in European and other countries with deep divisions among their ethnic, linguistic, or religious communities. The Government also referenced the International Crisis Group’s report on BiH, which states that a purely civic state is inconceivable for Serbs and Croats.
“Consociational arrangements were part of the price for recognizing Bosnia. In an interview with one of its authors, Peter W. Galbraith, the former U.S. ambassador to Croatia during the drafting of the Dayton Agreement, noted that without explicit assurances of power-sharing among the three main groups, negotiations would neither have started nor concluded… In other words, these institutional aspects of the Agreement were necessary for reaching the Dayton solution and already represented a compromise for Bosnian Croats and Serbs,” stated professors Christopher McCrudden and Brendan O’Leary from the University of Pennsylvania at the time.
European Court of Human Rights Judge Giovanni Bonello noted in 2009 that the Dayton architecture “rests on a power-sharing arrangement, finely detailed, that governs how the three nationalities will share power in various representative bodies of the state. The Dayton Agreement precisely measured the national balance in the formula for peace with the meticulousness of a chemist.”
The report also mentions Belgium, which operates on a similar power-sharing principle, divided among three regions and three linguistic communities, ensuring that no ethnic group dominates the other.
Aside from Belgium, consociational democracy principles function in Switzerland, North Macedonia, Northern Ireland, and South Tyrol, supported by both the EU and the U.S.
The European Court of Human Rights rejected challenges to the consociational arrangements in Belgium, stating that “each electoral system must be assessed in light of the political evolution of the given country; characteristics that would be unacceptable in one system may, therefore, be justified in another, at least as long as the chosen system provides for ‘the free expression of citizens’ opinion in choosing the legislative authority.’”
“However, the European Court does not show such flexibility regarding the electoral system in BiH. In a significant departure from its previous practice of accepting consociational mechanisms, the European Court in its ‘Sejdić-Finci’ decisions, starting in 2009, determined a violation of human rights in how the BiH Constitution prescribes the election of Presidency members and delegates to the House of Peoples. Although Republika Srpska supports implementing the ‘Sejdić-Finci’ decision and related rulings, it must be acknowledged that these decisions significantly disrupt the Dayton compromise,” the Srpska Government’s report states.
The decisions, Srpska’s Government states, have sparked a long-standing crisis in relations between Bosniak and Croat political parties in BiH, which have been deadlocked for over 14 years on how to implement the decisions within the Federation of BiH, one of the two entities in BiH.
“This crisis was foreseen by Judge Bonello in his dissenting opinion in the ‘Sejdić-Finci’ case, where he highlighted ‘the clear and present danger of destabilizing the national balance’ established by the Dayton Constitution of BiH. Nevertheless, some actors are even more determined to dismantle consociational democracy in BiH,” the report states.
The text points out that Bosniak political parties’ disregard for the constitutional consociational mechanisms exemplifies the systematic denial of constitutional provisions that grant the three-member BiH Presidency exclusive jurisdiction over determining BiH’s foreign policy.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Council of Ministers, under Bosniak control, led an initiative to adopt a divisive resolution on the Srebrenica war crime at the UN General Assembly, knowing that the Presidency had not agreed to this initiative and never would. The Ministry’s push for a resolution aimed at delegitimizing Republika Srpska is an audacious usurpation of the Presidency’s exclusive authority to establish BiH’s foreign policy,” the document states.
The Srpska Government report also underscores the need for both domestic and international actors to end their dangerous destabilization of the federal structure of BiH, as this is crucial for BiH’s future stability and success.
Source: RTRS
.jpg.webp "The Intelligence-Security Agency denies minister Helez’s claims: There are no camps or any kind of Russian paramilitary formations in BiH")
