Republika Srpska's 13Th Report to the UN Security Council
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Republika Srpska’s 13th Report to the UN Security Council May 2015 Republika Srpska’s 13th Report to the UN Security Council Table of Contents Introduction and Executive Summary ....................................................................................... 1 I. The RS supports the new EU initiative based on BiH leaders’ Written Commitment to enact reforms in accordance with the Constitution and Dayton Accords. ......................... 3 A. The RS is implementing an ambitious program of reforms to promote jobs, growth, and EU integration. ..................................................................................................... 3 1. The RS is moving to enact a new round of economic reforms that build on the RS’s earlier measures to improve its business and investment environment. ...... 4 2. The RS’s economic reforms have earned international praise. ............................. 4 3. The RS continues to align its laws and regulations with the EU’s acquis. ........... 6 4. To promote jobs and growth, state property, including military property, must be allocated in accordance with law. ......................................................................... 6 5. The RS’s fight against corruption ......................................................................... 7 B. The cost and utility of BiH-level agencies should be thoroughly examined in order to identify needed reforms as a key priority in fulfilling the new EU initiative. ............ 8 C. The RS is working with the EU on crucial reforms to the BiH justice system, as the Written Commitment requires. ................................................................................... 9 1. The Court of BiH must be reformed to limit its jurisdiction to BiH-level laws, leaving the adjudication of Entity laws to Entity court systems. .......................... 9 2. An independent court must be established to adjudicate appeals from the Court of BiH. ..................................................................................................................... 10 3. The Court of BiH must implement the European Court of Human Rights’ Maktouf decision. .............................................................................................................. 10 4. The BiH High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council’s authority must be limited to BiH institutions. .................................................................................................. 10 5. The BiH judicial system is nontransparent. ........................................................ 10 D. The BiH justice system must stop discriminating against Serb victims of war crimes and protecting Bosniak officials. .............................................................................. 11 1. The RS strongly objects to the recent decision of the BiH Prosecutor’s Office not to investigate the president of the BiH House of Representatives for his involvement in atrocities committed by the El Mujahid. .................................... 11 2. Protecting Bosniak officials and political elite from war crimes prosecution is a reoccurring problem that must end. .................................................................... 12 3. The protest by members of political parties in the BiH House of Representatives against the president of the House is reasonable; the international community should condemn the BiH Prosecutor’s Office for failure to discharge its duties. .................................................................................................................. 12 E. The RS supports other important BiH-wide reforms to promote EU integration. .... 13 i 1. The RS supports establishing a coordination mechanism at all levels of governance, as the Written Commitment provides, although divisions within the FBiH have prevented agreement to date. ............................................................ 13 2. Divisions within the FBiH have prevented implementation of the Sejdić-Finci decision. .............................................................................................................. 13 II. BiH’s Dayton structure is indispensible to the stability and functional governance required for EU integration. ............................................................................................................ 13 A. BiH’s constitutional structure, mandated by the Dayton Accords, is essential to stability. ..................................................................................................................... 13 B. Functional governance requires a BiH level that respects its constitutional limits. 15 C. BiH’s decentralised structure allows for policy experimentation without waiting for BiH-wide consensus.................................................................................................. 16 D. Decentralization is consistent with EU integration policy and practice among EU members. ................................................................................................................... 16 E. Calls to restore Entity competences and protect Constituent Peoples ...................... 17 III. BiH, as Europe’s largest per-capita exporter of fighters to ISIS, must be especially vigilant against terrorism. .............................................................................................................. 18 A. The deadly April 27 terrorist attack on RS police in Zvornik .................................. 18 B. The roots and history of terrorism in BiH ................................................................. 19 IV. Other key issues ................................................................................................................ 20 A. OHR should be closed and its destructive interference in BiH governance disavowed. ................................................................................................................................... 20 B. Srebrenica ................................................................................................................. 20 C. The Security Council should end the application of Chapter VII of the UN Charter....................................................................................................................... 21 ii Republika Srpska’s 13th Report to the UN Security Council Introduction and Executive Summary Republika Srpska (RS), a party to all of the annexes that comprise the Dayton Accords, respectfully submits this 13th Report to the UN Security Council, which outlines the RS Government’s views on key issues facing Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This Report focuses, in particular, on the RS Government’s strong support for the EU’s new initiative for BiH and the indispensability of BiH’s decentralized federal structure. I. The RS supports the new EU initiative based on BiH leaders’ Written Commitment to enact reforms in accordance with the Constitution and Dayton Accords. Section I describes BiH’s new Written Commitment to enact a series of important reforms consistent with the Constitution and what the RS is doing to fulfill the document’s commitments. The RS is pursuing a far-reaching reform program, consistent with the EU’s initiative, to raise growth, fight unemployment, and advance EU integration. In order for BiH to fulfill the Written Commitment, there must also be a thorough examination of the costly and often useless BiH-level agencies that were the result of BiH’s forced centralization. Moreover, as the Written Commitment requires, the RS is working with the EU on vital judicial reforms that are necessary for BiH to meet EU standards. Of particular importance is correcting serious discrimination in war crimes prosecutions by the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, as highlighted during this reporting period by the failure of the Chief Prosecutor to even investigate war crimes of atrocities committed by the El Mujahid involving Bosniak officials. The RS will also continue to work to establish a coordination mechanism in the process of BiH’s EU integration, in accordance with constitutional competencies, as the Written Commitment requires—although divisions within the FBiH have prevented agreement to date. II. BiH’s Dayton structure is indispensible to the stability and functional governance required for EU integration. Section II describes why the RS is committed to the BiH structure established in Annex 4 of the Dayton Accords, the BiH Constitution. The Constitution’s mechanisms for protecting BiH’s Constituent Peoples are essential to the country’s stability. Moreover, the Constitution’s limits on BiH-level competences are vital to BiH’s proper functioning. The proliferation of competences at the BiH level in defiance of those limits has resulted in the frequent deadlocks that characterize BiH-level policymaking today. The Constitution’s federal structure is also important because it enables Entities to enact policy innovations for which it would not have been possible to develop consensus at the BiH level. As EU officials have often recognized— and as Europe’s highly successful federal states demonstrate—BiH’s decentralized constitutional structure is not a barrier to BiH’s membership to the EU. III. BiH, as Europe’s largest per-capita exporter of fighters to ISIS, must be especially vigilant against terrorism. Section III examines how BiH came to be the world’s fourth-largest per-capita contributor of fighters to ISIS and the need for the BiH to be especially vigilant in preventing terrorism. The serious challenge