Introduction and Executive Summary
Republika Srpska (RS), a party to all of the annexes that comprise
the Dayton Accords, respectfully submits this 9th Report to the UN
Security Council. The report examines developments since the 8th Report
and outlines the RS government’s views on some key issues facing Bosnia
and Herzegovina (BiH).
The overriding goal of the RS Government is to improve the economic
condition of its citizens. To accomplish this, the RS is pursuing
economic and judicial reforms, advancing European integration, and
protecting the decentralized BiH structure set out in the Dayton
Constitution. The RS Government serves all its people. The RS’s cabinet
includes members of all of BiH’s constituent peoples, and the RS
institutions work to ensure that non-Serb ethnic groups are respected. A
recent example of this was a February 2013 RS Constitutional Court
decision ruling that the coats of arms and flags of two RS
municipalities were unconstitutional because their inclusion of Serb
symbols put Bosniaks and Croats “in an unequal position.”
The RS is justly proud of its well established democratic political
system. RS elections, as confirmed by international observers every two
years, are fair and competitive. Changes in party control at the Entity
and local levels are peaceful, orderly, and routine, as demonstrated
most recently in the October 2012 local elections. In the 17 years since
the Dayton Accords, the RS Prime Minister’s office and Presidency have
each switched party hands four times.
As the RS’s new Prime Minister, Ms. Željka Cvijanović, told the RS
National Assembly on 12 March 2013, the new cabinet will fight for
“preserving every job, fiscal and social stability, reforming the
business environment and creating space for foreign and domestic
investments, and all this in an effort to rehabilitate the principles of
social justice.”
What the RS asks of the international community is respect for BiH’s
sovereignty and Constitution and cooperation with local efforts to move
the RS—as well as BiH as a whole—forward toward a prosperous, European
future.
I. The status of BiH reform
BiH’s leaders made important progress in the first half of 2012,
including the enactment of laws on the census and state aid and
agreements on longstanding controversies like state and military
property. But when relations between the two largest Bosniak parties
(SDP and SDA) broke down a year ago, progress at the BiH level came to a
sudden stop.
Nevertheless, in late November, the parties that make up BiH’s
partially reconstituted Council of Ministers came together, on their own
initiative, and agreed on a wide-ranging agenda for reform. The
agreement includes important and urgent measures, such as creation of a
coordination mechanism for EU integration talks. Unfortunately, a bitter
and protracted dispute over formation of a new Government of the
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH)—again between the Bosniak
SDP and SDA parties—has stalled implementation of the agreed reforms.
This is the second time in less than a year that intra-Bosniak struggles
have derailed progress. The RS is hopeful that the current impasse in
the FBiH will end soon so that legislative progress at the BiH level may
resume.
II. BiH must retain the decentralized structure of the Dayton Constitution.
Decentralized forms of government have had great success in improving
administrative efficiency, and they are most successful in countries
that, like BiH, have deep regional differences. It is BiH’s
decentralized structure that has made it possible for the RS, unlike the
FBiH, to have a functional government and to enact far-reaching
economic reforms to encourage job creation. Another reason BiH must
retain its decentralized structure is the inefficiency, dysfunction,
non-transparency, irrationality, and unaccountability of BiH-level
institutions. Moreover, as the EU has made clear, BiH’s decentralized
constitutional structure is not a barrier to EU integration.
III. Economic Development
In the past several years, the RS has pursued an aggressive program of
economic reform that has dramatically improved its business environment.
A 2011 World Bank study found Banja Luka, the administrative center of
the RS, to be one of the two most improved business environments in the
Balkans since 2008. Although economic conditions remain difficult
throughout BiH and the Balkans as the global financial crisis grinds on,
the RS’s reforms have shown results. The RS unemployment rate has
actually fallen three percentage points since 2006, before the global
financial crisis began. Consistently in recent years, the RS has
substantially lower unemployment than the FBiH. The RS is also working
to bring about a better economic future by harmonizing its laws with the
EU’s acquis. So far, more than 800 laws and bylaws have undergone this
procedure.
IV. Justice Reform
BiH’s centralized judicial and prosecutorial system, which was imposed
by the High Representative in violation of the BiH Constitution, has
proven to be ineffective and unaccountable. It should go without saying
that war crimes must be punished without regard to the ethnicity of
their victims. But an examination of statistics and other information
about war crimes cases indicates a strong predisposition by the BiH
Prosecutor’s Office against prosecuting war crimes that were committed
against Serbs. As part of the EU’s Structured Dialogue on Justice, the
RS is pursuing essential reforms and suggests solutions to bring BiH’s
High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council and the Court of BiH into
alignment with European standards. The RS is also deeply concerned by
the BiH Constitutional Court’s increasing expansion of its own
jurisdiction to include issues arising not under the BiH Constitution
but under ordinary Entity law. The fact that the Constitutional Court
has 8,800 appeals pending, together with the fact that it has only six
active judges (three foreigners in Sarajevo spend less than a month per
year) adds to the woes of BiH’s poor, OHR-created judicial system.
V. The OHR’s unlawful and counterproductive role
The presence of a High Representative claiming authority to rule and
punish by decree violates the Dayton Accords and frustrates BiH’s
political and economic development. The so-called “Bonn Powers” asserted
by the High Representative conflict with his mandate under Annex 10 of
the Dayton Accords and violate the civil and political rights of BiH
citizens. Moreover, the outsize presence of a foreign diplomat—backed by
a large bureaucracy—who claims absolute political authority without
accountability, severely impedes the normal give-and-take of democratic
politics. Key members of the international community are increasingly
concluding that the High Representative’s role in BiH should now come to
an end. Even so, some in the international community continue to assert
that BiH should first fulfill the so-called “5+2” objectives and
conditions identified by the ad hoc Peace Implementation Council (PIC)
in 2008. But the 5+2 formula is unworkable and counterproductive because
it ensures that political parties who consider the High Representative
an invaluable ally will block the fulfillment of the last remaining
conditions for his office’s closure.
VI. BiH is peaceful and secure.
Year by year, an international consensus is growing that BiH does not
pose a significant security threat. The situation in BiH in no way
warrants the determination required for the UN Security Council to act
under Chapter VII of the UN Charter: that there exists a “threat to the
peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.” After more than 17
years of peace and progress in BiH, there is no justification for the UN
Security Council to continue acting under Chapter VII.
(bihdaytonproject.com/Frontal)
