A fitting follow up, as we remember what unfolded in Bijeljina twenty years ago, is a recent posting on the Terra Nullus website by Halisa Skolpjak, who works on legal issues for the OSCE in BiH (the standard disclaimer applies: the views are her own not those of her organization).
Her post “Unfinished Business” addressed problems of legal interpretation and enforcement of the law and amendments the OHR was forced to impose from 1999 to 2003 to address systematic obstruction against the implementation of Annex VII of the Dayton Peace Accords (One of the regrets I have concerning Bosnia Remade is that it does not discuss this legal infrastructure in the detail it deserved). The post, however, was subsequently withdrawn for reasons that are unclear. For a broader discussion of this troubling lingering issue see Rhodri C. Williams’ follow-up post.
The title “Unfinished Business” echoes the Human Rights Watch Report of 2002 mentioned in the previous post. Also this is the phrase chosen for the title of the book that brings together the presentations from the June 2011 Sarajevo conference sponsored by, among others the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. This group recently – 26-28 March 2012 — sponsored a Southeastern European Economic Forum here in DC. Agenda details
The full book Unfinished Business: The Western Balkans and the International Community, edited by Dan Hamilton and Vedran Dzihic, is now available on the CTR website.
Dr Gerard Toal
Bosnia Remade 