Bosnien und Herzegowina

Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik has threatened to torpedo a number of major achieved reforms in the country, including the formation of joint armed forces and a state court and police agency, unless a state-level government is formed soon.

Bosnia’s rival Serb, Croat and Bosniak leaders agreed on Monday to form a central government 10 months after a general election, reaching a compromise about Bosnia’s integration into NATO which had been a key stumbling block.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Council of Ministers was criticised for again failing to consider a revised national strategy for prosecuting war crimes to ensure that the country’s huge backlog of cases is processed by 2023.

Group of veterans from the Dutch UN unit which was part of UN Peacekeeping mission in Srebrenica region in 1995 files lawsuit against the Netherlands Government.

After Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity announced it was dropping a controversial proposal to establish a new reservist police force, it is now being accused of planning to set up a military-style ‘gendarmerie’ instead.

Final convictions have been significantly lower in the past two years, and the Bosnian prosecution has not been investing time and resources in investigating the most complex cases, said an OSCE report.

Serge Brammertz, chief prosecutor at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague, raised concerns about a lack of political will to prosecute suspects, the continuing denial of crimes and the glorification of convicts.

The post-electoral political deadlock in Bosnia in Herzegovina has stalled progress towards NATO membership, as political leaders fail to adopt the country’s first Annual National Program, which the Western alliance requires as a condition for activating the Membership Action Plan, MAP.

Bosnian Serb lawmakers voted on Thursday (18 April) to introduce reserve police forces, a move seen as a security threat by Muslim Bosniaks living in Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic.