Twenty five years after the end of the bitter and brutal conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
the country is widely regarded as a dysfunctional state.
This has led to calls for a fundamental reform of the complex political system put in place in 1995.
But does Bosnia need a new constitution? And, more to the point, how could it happen?
[MUSIC]
Hello and welcome. If you're new to the channel, my name is James Ker-Lindsay
and here I take an informed look at international relations, conflict and the origins of countries.
There are three main ways separatist conflicts end.
In some cases, a country finishes the conflict by military means - overrunning the breakaway
territory and effectively extinguishing the challenge.
Alternatively, though rarely, a territory will win its independence.
Then there are the cases where a negotiated settlement is reached
that sees the territory reintegrated into the state it was trying to secede
from - most usually with some form of autonomy arrangement.
This might amount to a degree of self-rule in certain areas,
such as education and cultural affairs.
Sometimes it could lead to a more fundamental change to the central
state, such as the creation of a federation or confederation.
And while these steps may produce a lasting settlement, this isn't always the case.
Indeed, an agreement that once resolved the conflict
may become a source of resentment and tension.
One of the best cases is Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It's now 25 years since the brutal war in the country - a
conflict that cost over a hundred thousand lives - came to an end.
At the time, the complex constitutional structure put in place to end the fighting
was hailed as a breakthrough for peace.
However, a quarter of a century later, many now see it as entrenching ethnic divisions
and even laying the foundation for return to conflict.
So, does Bosnia need a new constitution?
Bosnia-Herzegovina lies in southeast Europe.
To its north and west lies Croatia.
Montenegro is to its south and Serbia is to its east.
At 51,000 square kilometres, or a little under 20,000 square miles,
is the 125th largest of the UN's 193 members.
Its population is currently around 3.4 million people.
This is composed of three main communities - or "constitutive peoples".
According to figures from the 2013 census, the largest of these groups are the Bosniaks.
Once more generally known as Bosnian Muslims, they accounted for 50.11 per cent of the population.
The next largest group are the Serbs, who amounted to 30.78 per cent.
The third main group are the Croats, who accounted for 15.42 per cent.
The remaining three and a half percent was made up of various other groups.
These included members of the country's Roma and Jewish communities,
and those who don't identify with the three main groups, such as Montenegrins and Albanians.
The story really begins in 1991
when the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began to break apart.
In early 1992, the Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats held a referendum on independence.
On a turnout of 63.4 percent of the country's electorate, 99.7 voted for statehood.
Days later, on 3 March, the country declared independence.
And, on 22 May, it was admitted as a member of the United Nations alongside Slovenia and
Croatia, two other republics that had broken away from Socialist Yugoslavia.
However, this independence was rejected by the country's Serbian community,
which had boycotted the referendum.
In April 1992, and supported by neighbouring Serbia, then still Yugoslavia, they severed
relations with the central government and created their own separate entity, Republika Srpska.
Then, later that year, as fighting escalated between Serbs and Bosniak-led government forces,
the Croats, supported by Croatia, also established a breakaway state - the
Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia - thereby sparking a further conflict in the country.
In early 1994, the Bosniaks and Croats reached a peace
agreement and created a joint entity: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This was composed of 10 separate federal units, termed cantons, each with their own
assemblies and executives and competences over areas such as policing, education,
social welfare and business, tourism and energy regulation.
Meanwhile, the conflict with the Bosnian Serbs continued.
However, this all changed in the summer of 1995.
The massacre of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces around
Srebrenica - an event that's been recognised as an act of genocide
by the International Court of Justice - finally the international community to act.
At the start of November, the leaders of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia gathered for
peace talks at the Wright-Patterson air force base near Dayton, Ohio in the United States.
On 21 November, the sides initialed a settlement.
Then, three weeks later, on 14 December 1995, the General Framework Agreement for
Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina was formally signed in Paris.
The General Framework Agreement - now better known as the Dayton
Accords - covered a range of issues relating to the end of hostilities.
However, and crucially, Annex IV laid down a complex
new constitutional structure for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
At the heart of this arrangement were the two entities - the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska,
which gave up its claim to independence,
and the Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
While a central government was created, it was deliberately limited in scope.
Its competences were focused on foreign policy, immigration and customs,
monetary policy, and overseeing certain international and inter-entity issues.
All other areas lay in the hands of the entities.
At the same time, the institutions of the central
state were structured around these entities and ethnicity.
The main executive body was the joint presidency.
This was made up of a Bosniak and a Croat from the Federation and a Serb from Republika Srpska.
They would appoint the chair of the country's Council of Ministers, who in
turn appointed ministers according to a two to one ratio between the Federation and Republika Srpska.
Legislative power was vested in a two-chamber Parliamentary Assembly.
This was made up of the 42-member House of Representatives, composed of 28 representatives
from the Federation and 14 from Republika Srpska, and a 15-member House of Peoples,
composed of five Croats and five Bosniaks from the Federation and five Serbs from Republika Srpska.
Taken all together, and including the complex structure of the Federation,
this had created - as the Council of Europe later noted - a country with three rotating presidents
at the central state level, two presidents at an entity level, 13 prime ministers,
over 180 ministers, 760 members of various legislative bodies, and 148 municipalities.
Despite the complex nature of the settlement,
over the course of the following decade Bosnia began to recover.
A number of major steps towards greater political integration took place,
including the successful adoption of a number of symbols of statehood - including
a flag and an anthem - and the creation of a unified military.
However, the fundamental problems with the system gradually became apparent.
Notwithstanding the enormous expense of this administrative state and entity apparatus,
which at one point was estimated to amount to over 60 per cent of GDP,
it also had deep political shortcomings.
In particular, the elements of the constitution requiring
candidates for the Presidency and the House of Peoples
to come from one of the three main ethnic groups came to be seen as discriminatory.
In 2006, a proposal for constitutional changes narrowly failed to get the two-thirds of votes
in the House of Representatives needed for constitutional change.
This became especially significant when, three years later, the European Court of Human Rights
ruled that the provisions of the Bosnian constitution in fact
violated the European Convention on Human Rights.
In spite of efforts by outside actors, most notably the European Union,
further attempts at constitutional change failed.
In large part this was due to a noticeable hardening of positions
amongst the main political leaders in the country - a development that not
only made constitutional reform more difficult but also began to seriously
affect the day-to-day administration and functioning of the central government.
In Republika Srpska, the nationalist leadership began speaking openly about secession - even
though this was explicitly prohibited and could not be realistically achieved.
At the same time, the Bosnian Croats, in the face of dwindling numbers in their community, began
to become increasingly vocal about reorganising the Federation and having their own entity.
Meanwhile, within the Bosniak community, calls for the greater centralisation of
power and the creation of a non-ethnic Bosnian identity were linked to demands
from some quarters that Republika Srpska - seen as a product of genocide by many
people - be abolished entirely and a wholesale rejection of Croat calls for their own entity.
Needless to say, each of these positions in turn directly fed the position of
the others - thus seeming to create a vicious circle of worsening relations.
So, does Bosnia need a new constitution?
One thing that can be said with absolute certainty
is that some degree of constitutional reform is needed.
The ruling of the European Court of Human Rights
cannot be ignored, not least of all because adherence to the Court's rulings
is a fundamental prerequisite for European Union membership - a long-term goal for Bosnia.
But what about a wholesale redrawing of the constitution?
Here views differ.
On the one hand, some would say "No".
As noted, the constitution was able to function effectively for the first decade,
notwithstanding its discriminatory provisions.
In this sense, some would argue that it could still work - albeit with the
required changes - if only there was a willingness by the sides to make it work.
They'd say that the current problems
are a product of the country's political leaders, not the Dayton System as such.
Make the necessary changes to make it compatible with human rights requirements
and leave it - at that at least for now.
Others would argue that this is the wrong way of looking at it.
To them, the political leaders are a product of the Dayton constitution.
While Dayton may have initially led to peace,
it has also embedded ethnic separation and created the politicians who appealed
to their own communities with little regard for the country as a whole.
In this sense, they'd argue that the only solution is wholesale reform.
The problem, of course, is that it's all but impossible to see how this can happen
at the moment, especially given the hugely divergent positions of the three communities.
Opening up a discussion on an entirely new constitution would lead to deadlock without
fundamental compromises from all three communities on their basic positions.
But in all this focus on the central state it's also easy to forget that
there is in fact another problematic constitution.
Some would argue that instead of focusing on the main Dayton constitution in the first
instance it might be better to start by tackling the Federation and its ten cantons.
If this could be streamlined, then it would eradicate a whole layer of bureaucracy.
The trouble of course here is that reforming the Federation is also seemingly impossible
without offering the Croats their own entity - something that Bosniaks refused to consider,
viewing it as a further fracturing of the country along ethnic lines and creating
another potentially secessionist entity alongside Republika Srpska.
In this sense, even fixing one element that might
in turn make reform of the bigger problem easier is off the table.
It's now over a quarter of a century since the bitter and bloody conflict
in Bosnia - the most brutal conflict in Europe since the Second World War - came to an end.
While the agreement put in place in Dayton served the interests of peace at the time,
it created a complex system that was built on entrenching ethnic differences in the
country - a system that's since been judged to be discriminatory.
To this extent, even if it doesn't need an entirely new constitution,
Bosnia desperately needs constitutional reform;
not just as a matter of political expediency, but as a fundamental question of human rights.
The problem is that while Bosnia certainly needs a new constitutional arrangement of one
sort or another and to a greater or lesser degree, enacting any reform has seemingly become all but
impossible within a political atmosphere that has seen the country become ever more dysfunctional.
Even trying to fix the constitution within the constitution is seemingly off the table.
It's for this reason that many now worry that the Dayton constitution, while delivering peace
to Bosnia in 1995, may now be creating the conditions for a return to conflict.
I hope you found that interesting. If so, here are some more videos that you might find useful.
And don't forget to Like,
Subscribe and turn on the notifications bell to be alerted to when I upload new videos.
I post new ones every Friday.
Thanks so much for watching and see you in the next video.