Internationalized State-Building After Violent Conflict: Bosnia Ten Years After Dayton by Marc Weller & Stefan Wolff

Author:Marc Weller & Stefan Wolff [Weller, Marc & Wolff, Stefan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138973213
Google: _wFYjwEACAAJ
Amazon: B00G24VVT2
Barnesnoble: B00G24VVT2
Goodreads: 20107761
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-05-26T10:18:24+00:00

International Implementation of Dayton Bosnia

After years of war and deepening animosity, there was no real prospect that the complex arrangements for Bosnia’s future could be implemented by the former warring parties without an external helping hand. For this reason the agreements made significant provision for international involvement in implementation of the peace settlement. Overall coordination of civilian implementation was given to a High Representative under the authority of the UN Security Council (Framework, Annex 10, Article I.2). This job was to be given initially to Carl Bildt, who had been acting as EU mediator. He was succeeded by Spanish diplomat Carols Westendorp, Austrian Wolfgang Petritsch and eventually Briton Lord (Paddy) Ashdown.10 The High Representative had responsibility for coordinating all aspects of the civilian implementation, as well as coordinating his activities with those of the IFOR Commander and maintaining contact with the UN, the Contact Group and other important international actors. Most importantly, the High Represenative was given the ‘final authority’ on interpreting Dayton’s civilian provisions (Framework, Annex 10, Article V).

Within Bosnia there was a serious international civilian involvement. This was the case, for example, with regard to appointments in key posts during the transition by international bodies of persons who were neither citizens of Bosnia, nor of its neighbouring states. These included: the Human Rights Ombudsman (Framework, Annex 6, Article IV.2), appointed by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) for the first five years of implementation; the first Governor of the Central Bank (Framework, Annex 4, Article VII.2), appointed by the International Monetary Fund for a six-year term; and the membership of the Constitutional Court (Framework, Annex 4, Article VI.1b), where three out of nine representatives were to be designated by the President of the European Court of Human Rights. These appointments held great saliency. For an initial period financial control would be outside day-to-day Bosnian politics and the critical issues that would face the Constitutional Court in the event of the ‘vital interest’ mechanisms being invoked would not be entirely subject to inter-communal differences.

The need for a strong international role in implementation was evident in other ways. International bodies had a key role in monitoring and overseeing the fulfilment of human rights agreements—with unrestricted access and cooperation—under the terms of the agreement (Framework, Annex 6, Article XIII). It was also evident in the role assigned to the OSCE over the preparations for and conducting of elections. The OSCE had responsibility for elections, as well as for forming a Provisional Election Commission to manage the various tasks of running polls to the several elected political institutions that made up Bosnia and its entities (Framework, Annex 3, Article II.2-3).

Justice was a vital element in making peace and peace building was the main issue. The real test for the international community, as well as for the various Bosnians themselves, was rebuilding Bosnia in such a way as to make it whole and functioning. This required vast resources to make the settlement work—and the responsibility for post-war reconstruction fell, above all, to the EU.

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