On May 10, 2023, BiH Presidency Chairperson Željka Cvijanović addressed the UN Security Council. The text of the address is below and at this link.
Address by the Serb member and BiH Presidency Chairwoman Željka Cvijanović at the session of the United Nations Security Council as part of the debate on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina
I thank you, Madam President, for this opportunity to address the Security Council.
I am encouraged to hear so many statements indicating that the governments represented in this meeting all share the same objective—a Bosnia and Herzegovina that is sovereign, independent, stable, functional, and prosperous.
With this shared goal in mind, I would like to emphasize three points that any informed observer must agree are key to accomplishing it.
First, and most important: the only realistic path toward this shared objective is adherence to the Dayton Accords, including the BiH Constitution, which incorporated a formula for power-sharing among the three major constituent peoples in BiH that share a long history of conflict.
The BiH Constitution was carefully designed based on a recognition of this simple reality and established a system with decentralized authority and important power-sharing mechanisms in order to give each of the groups confidence that it will not come under the rule of the other groups. This carefully crafted system has successfully preserved peace in BiH for more than 27 years.
Since the Republic of Srpska, the Entity that has elected me to the BiH Presidency, has been mentioned so many times here, I would like to note that at Dayton the RS agreed with the other parties to be part of a highly decentralized BiH in which all competences belong to the two Entities except for those few competences that the Constitution expressly assigns to BiH-level institutions.
In the decades since the Dayton Accords were signed, BiH has been contorted into a much more centralized system, due almost entirely to foreign interventions, rather than legal, democratic actions.
If we all share the common goal of a sovereign, independent, stable, functional, and prosperous BiH, then the most important thing that the Security Council and its members can do is to support the Dayton Accords by word and deed, and condemn actions that would undo the carefully crafted system of checks and balances guaranteed in the BiH Constitution.
My second point is that, despite some heated rhetoric, the security situation in BiH is, in fact, quite stable, as EUFOR has recently confirmed. BiH is not at all the powder keg it is alleged to be by some who seek more foreign intervention and control over BiH.
It is true that BiH often finds itself in a state of political tension, but that condition is typical among most democracies, including many of those represented here today.
And this brings me to my third point. The primary threat to BiH’s stability does not come from charged political statements, but from the failure to faithfully implement the Dayton Accords. Quite simply, if the deal struck at Dayton is not honored, then there is no hope for BiH’s success.
There are two particularly pernicious ways in which there has been a failure to adhere to Dayton. The first is the illegal transformation of the role of the High Representative from a facilitator into an autocrat with unlimited powers, vastly exceeding the strictly limited mandate agreed in Annex 10 of the Dayton Accords.
The despotic powers claimed by the High Representative are even more expansive than those of a foreign viceroy, as they are asserted to be completely immune from any limitations or oversight whatsoever.
Successive High Representatives, having almost no relevant experience in the region and few relevant credentials for the position, have ruled by decree with no local hearings, no consultation with elected bodies or officials in BiH, and no due process whatsoever—and they have done so with no authority granted by this Council or by any valid legal instrument or international organization.
These dictatorial actions have resulted in a flood of rash, ill-considered, humiliating decrees— more than 460 pieces of legislation and regulations, 110 amendments to Entity constitutions, and 249 extrajudicial punishments of individuals—all with no legal authority or oversight.
Despite widespread agreement—even among former High Representatives—that the High Representative’s claim to rule by decree is utterly illegal, Mr. Christian Schmidt has rashly announced additional disruptive decrees that have infuriated large segments of BiH’s population.
His latest edicts, which purport to amend the criminal codes of both of BiH’s Entities, yet again make a mockery of the rule of law, and represent just the latest brazen usurpation of the democratic rights of the citizens of BiH to rule themselves—rights that this Council is pledged to protect.
Furthermore, shortly before my travels to participate in this meeting, Mr. Schmidt, whose appointment this Council failed to approve, threatened that if I had the nerve to question his legitimacy before this Council, I would receive an answer I would not like. The attitude that Mr. Schmidt has shown toward the elected officials in BiH is, unfortunately, typical of the attitude of too many foreign officials who come and go in BiH.
Their arrogant, dismissive, and disdainful attitude toward legally elected and broadly supported domestic officials and institutions in BiH is, to say the least, unhelpful, and becomes particularly absurd when these officials sharply criticize the Entities for proposing laws mirroring those that have long been in place in these diplomats’ own home countries.
Remarkably, these officials, who work to usurp the constitutional authority of democratically elected officials in BiH on a daily basis, complain when local officials do not bend the knee and honor their illegal assertions of authority, and so we are accused of a “failure to communicate.”
The High Representative’s dictatorial rule is not just patently illegal, but it is also very counterproductive, as has been attested in recent years by former High Representatives.
The OHR’s looming presence and constant attempts to micromanage BiH suffocate the democratic process and hinder the unfettered internal dialogue and reconciliation essential to BiH’s future success.
Indeed, the OHR’s ill-advised interference more often creates rather than solves problems, as demonstrated by the way it has generated and enflamed the controversy regarding ownership of public property.
Initially it was widely accepted that the Constitution left public property to the Entities, an understanding used as the basis for various BiH laws still in force, and upheld by the Constitutional Court. Even statements made or supported by influential foreign officials in 2008 also demonstrated acknowledgement of Entity ownership of public property.
The issue was never in dispute until former High Representative Paddy Ashdown, with his typical imperial attitude, intervened to create the entire controversy. Years later, in 2012, when the parties in BiH agreed to a resolution of the public property issue, the deal was quashed by then-High Representative Valentin Inzko, simply because it was not driven by the OHR and crafted to his liking.
Uncertainty regarding public property, caused solely by OHR meddling, now hinders cooperation and progress in BiH, as the issue has been seized upon by those seeking to further centralize BiH in contravention of the Constitution.
If BiH is ever to be sovereign, independent, stable, functional, and prosperous, then BiH needs to be governed not by unelected foreigners issuing despotic decrees according to their own preferences and prejudices, but by its own Constitution, and its own citizens, in accordance with democratic principles and the rule of law.
The truth of this statement must, I think, be obvious to all members of the Council, but it is perhaps particularly clear to the many countries represented here that have proud histories of freeing themselves from despotic imperial rule by certain foreign powers.
And it must also be acknowledged by the members of this Council that the rule of law needs to be honored not just by local leaders in BiH, but also by those foreign officials that have long been ignoring or even actively subverting the BiH Constitution agreed at Dayton; that have been routinely and cavalierly violating the Vienna Convention’s prohibition against foreign diplomats meddling in local politics, and that have been influencing judicial cases that should be decided only in accordance with the Constitution and proper judicial integrity.
This points to a second important threat to the constitutional order in BiH. Unfortunately, some of the greatest distortions to the constitutional structure of BiH have been caused by the very institution established to uphold it—the BiH Constitutional Court.
The OHR frequently complains that the Court’s rulings are not being respected by the Entities. Тhis same OHR has hypocritically decreed that its own edicts are totally untouchable by the rulings of any court in BiH. Remarkably, the OHR never addresses the reasons why the Court’s decisions are met with skepticism, which is due to the corruption of the judicial process by the interference and influence of the OHR itself, along with that of certain foreign powers, as well as the effective control of the Court by its three foreign judges.
These foreign judges, who were meant to be a part of the Court only for the first five years of its operation, do not live in BiH, have no educational background in the laws of our country, do not speak the local languages, and issue contorted rulings that many agree read like political acts meant to please certain foreign powers rather than soundly reasoned legal determinations.
When a court ignores judicial propriety and the constitutional limits of its own authority, and issues decisions that are ultra vires, that court naturally squanders the respect of the citizens and the other branches of government. And when such decisions are the product of a voting bloc of foreign judges subject to outside influences, it is clear why such decisions lack credibility.
It is in the context of this total usurpation of the democratic process in BiH by outside powers, and the corruption of our judiciary, that so-called “secessionist rhetoric” and other political expressions of extreme frustration in BiH must be understood.
As for the RS, its official policy remains what it has always been: The RS is committed to BiH’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to the constitutional order established in the Dayton Accords, and it is committed to peace above all. But it is not ready to accept illegal, despotic rule by high representatives and unconstitutional decisions of the Constitutional court, nor to have its constitutional, democratic rights trampled and be treated as a colonial possession of certain foreign powers.
Somehow the RS has ended up in a sort of Orwellian position where complaints about the distortion and degradation of the Dayton Constitution are said to be anti-Dayton. The hypocrisy of such allegations, coming from some who actively subvert the Constitution agreed at Dayton, is astonishing.
If members of this Council will read the latest report from the OHR in this context, then they may understand that, to many of us in BiH, the report reads like that of a colonial viceroy to the home office, complaining that the locals, who are too ignorant and uncivilized to rule themselves in a constitutional democracy, do not respect and appreciate the benevolent despotism of the viceroy’s overlordship.
And if Council members will read the latest report from the RS, they will see that the RS cannot be accused of being some “renegade state” simply because it calls upon foreign officials to respect international law and the constitutional democratic rights of BiH citizens.
I again thank the members of the Council for their concern about the future of my country. I ask the Council to support BiH by advocating the full implementation of the Dayton Accords as written, and condemn foreign meddling in BiH that undermines the Accords, violates the rule of law, corrupts our judicial system, and hinders political cooperation within BiH.
As the most important concrete steps in this direction, this Council should make clear once and for all that the High Representative does not possess the despotic authority to rule BiH by decree and to confirm that our institutions at all levels of administration are entitled to make decisions in accordance with our Constitution.
I am convinced that BiH can have a successful future if the Dayton Accords are faithfully implemented with the support of this Council.
