Creating the legal framework of the Brcko district of Bosnia and Herzegovina: a model for the region and other postconflict countries

摘要

Postwar tensions between Bosnia's two "Entities"-the Republika Srpska (RS) and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Federation) - concerning control of the Brcko area could not be reconciled at the peace negotiations brokered by the United States at Dayton, Ohio, in 1995, which threatened to scuttle the entire peace process. Rather than holding up or forgoing the possibility of achieving the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA), in a last-ditch effort to resolve this crisis, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, acting on the suggestion of the president of the Republic of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic, proposed that the Brcko dispute be submitted to final and binding arbitration. On March 5, 1999, the Arbitral Tribunal for the Dispute over the Inter-Entity Boundary in the Brcko Area (Tribunal) issued its Final Award. It called for the Brcko area to be established as an autonomous district deriving its power from the RS and the Federation, which would hold the entire Brcko area simultaneously in "condominium" after delegating all of their powers of governance to "a new institution, a new multi-ethnic democratic government to be known as 'The Brcko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina' " (District). In essence, the Final Award implemented the final phase of the DPA.