Under Annex 10 of the Dayton Accords, the High Representative (HR) is supposed to “facilitate the Parties’ own efforts” and “[f]acilitate the resolution of any difficulties arising in connection with civilian implementation” of the Dayton Accords. How can HR Valentin Inzko fulfill these roles when he has demonstrated consistent hostility to one of the parties to Dayton, having long ago abandoned any pretense of neutrality?
In response to the recent criticism from the Republika Srpska (RS) of a poorly reasoned decision of the Constitutional Court, Inzko said Thursday that a lack of respect for Constitutional Court decisions crosses a “red line.” But the High Representative’s application of this red line is selective. EU Special Representative in BiH Ambassador Johann Sattler recently noted that all levels of administration in BiH have been failing to implement the Constitutional Court’s decisions. Yet HR Inzko has reserved his threats for the RS alone.
The truth of the matter is that the RS has a much better record than the Federation or the BiH level authorities with respect to implementing Constitutional Court decisions. In April 2018, the then-president of the Constitutional Court, a Bosniak, said there were nine decisions of the court that had not been implemented, and just one of those—a decision involving the RS law on enforcement procedure—was to be implemented by the RS.
For a decade, authorities of the Federation have failed to implement the Constitutional Court’s 2010 decision declaring the Mostar electoral system unconstitutional. The Federation’s disregard for the Mostar decision has prevented Mostar citizens from voting in local elections for almost 12 years. Yet even though the failure to implement the Mostar decision has disenfranchised the people of Mostar for many years, Inzko has never said the Federation has crossed a red line. Such rhetoric is reserved for the RS.
Inzko’s disdain for the RS, and his alliance with the Bosniak parties, makes it impossible for him to fulfill his role as a neutral facilitator among the parties to Dayton. In fact, he has become just the opposite of a facilitator and acts merely as a partisan meddler and scold who can be expected to consistently pick sides in favor of the SDA in any political disputes that arise in BiH. As such, he is a hindrance to the resolution of these matters, rather than a facilitator.
