Bosnia and Herzegovina

Current trends and public pronouncements by some political leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina indicate an effort to roll back reforms implemented since the end of the Balkan wars two decades ago, the UN Security Council heard on Tuesday.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has condemned Bosnia-Herzegovina for its failure to hold municipal elections in the ethnically divided city of Mostar for more than a decade over a legal issue. The Strasbourg court’s ruling on October 29 came in response to a suit filed by a Mostar resident and politician and gave authorities six months to amend election laws to allow a vote to take place.

The establishment of the gendarmerie comes after Republika Srpska dropped a plan in June to establish a new reservist police force – a proposal which was strongly criticised by Bosniak war victims’ groups and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Western allies.

The database of around 27,000 verified names of people who went missing in the 1992-95 war is being published to coincide with the International Day of the Disappeared.

Another attempt by Bosnia’s tripartite presidency to break the country’s long-running political deadlock and form a new state-level government, ten months after the last election, has failed.

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.