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The exercise of international administration in Bosnia and Herzegovina dates from 1995, when a High Representative of the international community was established to oversee the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement. This chapter explores the international and domestic interactions in Bosnia, and highlights in detail how the international presence has combined with local forces to shape the country's political transition. The first section of this chapter provides an overview of the Dayton Agreement itself, and outlines the structure of the international mission in Bosnia. Subsequent sections examine international involvement in three key arenas of political transition, and explore the ways in which international authorities in Bosnia have shaped democratic development and contributed heavily to the development and evolution of Bosnia's complex political regime. The result has been a mode of transition in Bosnia that has at times entailed international and domestic cooperation and consensus, but that has also frequently been marked by international imposition in the face of domestic opposition. Democratic regime-building in Bosnia has been a contested process.

The extraordinary power available to international authorities raises questions about the effectiveness and appropriateness of seeking to impose outcomes and the implications of these actions for the development of local political culture and institutions. Examines the opportunities and limitations of rule by decree—with special reference to Bosnia and Herzegovina—and discusses the considerations that ought to govern the exercise of international authority. Observes that the heavy-handed approach to governance may not always be successful: it can generate a popular backlash against transitional administrators and inhibit the development of autonomous political capacity. However, without broad authority international administrators maybe frustrated in their efforts to achieve the aims of their mandates.

On 1 Nov 1994, the UN Trusteeship Council voted to suspend operations after Palau, the last remaining trust territory, attained independence. The sovereign state has emerged out of decolonization as the supreme form of political organization in post‐colonial international society—an international society in which dominions, colonies, principalities, free cities, and, of course, mandates and trust territories have all but vanished. However, the ostensible failure of this post‐colonial project—the fact that the promise of peace and prosperity held out by independent statehood is too often betrayed by appalling violence and absolute poverty—has reinvigorated interest in trusteeship as a way of responding to problems of international disorder and injustice. The purpose of this chapter is threefold: first, it examines the principal dilemma of decolonization that has resulted in a renewed interest in trusteeship; second, it considers this renewed interest in trusteeship in the context of international involvement in administering Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and, until recently, East Timor; third, it reflects upon the normative implications that a resurrected practice of trusteeship carries for a society of states that is premised on the juridical equality of all its members. The five sections of the chapter are: The False Promise of post‐Colonial Independence; Innovation and Convention—the case for trusteeship in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and East Timor; The New International Legitimacy—the resurrection of trusteeship; A Universal Society of States?; and Answering the Call of Humanity.

This chapter first addresses the question how far it can be said that the second pillar already forms part of the ‘new legal order’ established by the EC Treaty. It then considers whether the Constitution contained and the Treaty of Lisbon contains proposals that would helpfully move the CFSP in the direction of communitarization, by examining the potential applicability of primacy and direct effect in the second pillar and analysing the role that is proposed for the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HRUFASP). Finally, the origins of the dichotomy between EC external relations and the CFSP are traced, and it considers whether this dichotomy accurately reflects the current legal and political situation of EU foreign policy.

Little thought was given to the ICTY’s relationship with Bosnian courts when the Tribunal was created. Later, the relationship between the Tribunal and the Bosnian judiciary saw profound change. At the dawn of the millennium, the Tribunal played a key role, along with the Office of the High Representative and Bosnian lawyers, in launching domestic war crimes institutions in Bosnia and bolstering local capacity to mount credible war crimes cases. This chapter chronicles the challenges, successes, and failures of the ICTY’s capacity-building initiatives in Bosnia and mines that experience for lessons that might usefully be applied in other settings. Highlighting the fragility of progress in post-conflict states like Bosnia, the chapter emphasizes the crucial role of external actors in addressing challenges as they arise.

This chapter covers the shift in international strategy from preventing a resumption of hostilities to creating the conditions for civilian implementation of the peace accord that subsequently evolved into long-term institution-building with the ultimate goal of Euro-Atlantic integration. It examines the role of the High Representative, the introduction of executive powers and their use to take the peace process forward. It also analyzes attempts to promote multi-ethnicity, including support for refugee returns, international supervision in Brčko and reforms emerging out of the 2000 Constitutional Court decision on the constituency of peoples. It considers the significance of justice to a self-sustaining settlement, including the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the 2007 verdict of the International Court of Justice in the Bosnia versus Serbia and Montenegro genocide case. It also analyzes institutional-building processes including the creation of the Central Bank, changes to the structure and procedures of the Council of Ministers and reforms to media, the judiciary, intelligence services, the defense sector and taxation system, as well as police restructuring designed to make the Dayton settlement more functional and prepare Bosnia for Euro-Atlantic integration.

Many Bosnians hoped the Tribunal would dispel denial and forge a shared understanding among their country’s ethnic communities about wartime atrocities. During a period of robust international engagement in the early years of the twenty-first century, there was significant progress in Serb acknowledgment of Serb atrocities, as well as acknowledgment by other ethnic groups that members of their in-group committed war crimes. Since 2006, however, there has been a sharp rise in nationalist rhetoric, which has included strident rejection of ICTY judgments. Moreover public opinion surveys reflect sharp cleavages among Bosnia’s major ethnic groups concerning beliefs about wartime atrocities. This chapter explores factors behind these trends, including the dynamics of competitive victimhood, the polarizing incentives of governance structures established in the Dayton Peace Agreement, and the retreat of the Office High Representative from robust engagement in Bosnia at a time of rising nationalism.

This chapter assesses the state of the peace process in 2006 when preparations were made to shut the Office of the High Representative and bring the Dayton process to a close, including an analysis of that year’s elections. It also examines the limits of what political scientists call the liberal peace-building model, the institution-building strategy the international community had deployed to reproduce Western liberal democracy in Bosnia. It discusses the complexity of democratic governance in divided societies and the shortcomings of Bosnia’s multi-party system, manifested by a flaw at the heart of democracy, or rule by the people, where the “people“ do not correspond to the demos, the citizenry, but to the ethnos, those sharing a distinct culture.