The government of Republika Srpska delivered its 13th report to the United Nations Security Council today. The report advises the Council on the entity’s positions on a range of issues relevant to the international community’s involvement in BiH, and summarizes the progress the RS has made in several areas. The executive summary of the report is below.
Introduction and Executive Summary
Republika Srpska (RS), a party to all of the annexes that comprise the Dayton Accords, respectfully submits this 13th Report to the UN Security Council, which outlines the RS Government’s views on key issues facing Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This Report focuses, in particular, on the RS Government’s strong support for the EU’s new initiative for BiH and the indispensability of BiH’s decentralized federal structure.
I. The RS supports the new EU initiative based on BiH leaders’ Written Commitment to enact reforms in accordance with the Constitution and Dayton Accords.
Section I describes BiH’s new Written Commitment to enact a series of important reforms consistent with the Constitution and what the RS is doing to fulfill the document’s commitments. The RS is pursuing a far-reaching reform program, consistent with the EU’s initiative, to raise growth, fight unemployment, and advance EU integration. In order for BiH to fulfill the Written Commitment, there must also be a thorough examination of the costly and often useless BiH-level agencies that were the result of BiH’s forced centralization. Moreover, as the Written Commitment requires, the RS is working with the EU on vital judicial reforms that are necessary for BiH to meet EU standards. Of particular importance is correcting serious discrimination in war crimes prosecutions by the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, as highlighted during this reporting period by the failure of the Chief Prosecutor to even investigate war crimes of atrocities committed by the El Mujahid involving Bosniak officials. The RS will also continue to work to establish a coordination mechanism in the process of BiH’s EU integration, in accordance with constitutional competencies, as the Written Commitment requires—although divisions within the FBiH have prevented agreement to date.
II. BiH’s Dayton structure is indispensible to the stability and functional governance required for EU integration.
Section II describes why the RS is committed to the BiH structure established in Annex 4 of the Dayton Accords, the BiH Constitution. The Constitution’s mechanisms for protecting BiH’s Constituent Peoples are essential to the country’s stability. Moreover, the Constitution’s limits on BiH-level competences are vital to BiH’s proper functioning. The proliferation of competences at the BiH level in defiance of those limits has resulted in the frequent deadlocks that characterize BiH-level policymaking today. The Constitution’s federal structure is also important because it enables Entities to enact policy innovations for which it would not have been possible to develop consensus at the BiH level. As EU officials have often recognized—and as Europe’s highly successful federal states demonstrate—BiH’s decentralized constitutional structure is not a barrier to BiH’s membership to the EU.
III. BiH, as Europe’s largest per-capita exporter of fighters to ISIS, must be especially vigilant against terrorism.
Section III examines how BiH came to be the world’s fourth-largest per-capita contributor of fighters to ISIS and the need for the BiH to be especially vigilant in preventing terrorism. The serious challenge of terrorism confronting BiH was tragically highlighted on 27 April by a
deadly attack by an Islamic radical on RS police in Zvornik.
IV. Other key issues
Section IV first emphasizes that the Office of the High Representative (OHR) must close and cease its harmful interference in BiH’s internal affairs while it remains open. Next, it explains why UN members should reject a divisive and simplistic resolution with respect to the 1995 Srebrenica atrocities. Finally, Section IV explains why, after more than 19 years of peace in BiH, there is no justification for the application of Chapter VII of the UN Charter.
