| Dayton Agreement | |
Seated from left to right: Slobodan Milošević, Alija Izetbegović, Franjo Tuđman signing the final peace agreement in Paris on December 14, 1995.
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| Created | December 14, 1995 |
| Signatories | Slobodan Milošević, Alija Izetbegović, Franjo Tuđman |
| Purpose | Ended the Bosnian War |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina |
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The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement, Dayton Accords, Paris Protocol or Dayton-Paris Agreement, is the peace agreement reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio in November 1995, and formally signed in Paris on December 14, 1995. These accords put an end to the three and a half year long war in Bosnia, one of the armed conflicts in the former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia.
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Though the basic concepts of the Dayton Agreement began to appear in international talks since 1992,[1] the negotiations were initiated following the unsuccessful previous peace efforts and arrangements, the August 1995 Croatian military Operation Storm and its aftermath, the government military offensive against the Republika Srpska, in concert with NATO's Operation Deliberate Force. During September and October 1995, many of the world powers (especially the USA and Russia), gathered in the Contact Group, applied intense pressure to the leaders of the three sides to attend the negotiations in Dayton, Ohio.
The conference took place from November 1 to November 21, 1995. The main participants from the region were Serbian President Slobodan Milošević (representing the Bosnian Serb interests due to absence of Karadžić), Croatian President Franjo Tuđman, and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegović with Bosnian Foreign Minister Muhamed Sacirbey.
The peace conference was led by U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, and negotiator Richard Holbrooke with two Co-Chairmen in the form of EU Special Representative Carl Bildt and the First Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Igor Ivanov. A key participant in the US delegation was General Wesley Clark (later to become NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) in 1997). The UK military representative was Col Arundell David Leakey (later to become Commander of EUFOR in 2005). Paul Williams, through the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG) served as legal counsel to the Bosnian Government delegation during the negotiations.
The secure site was chosen for several reasons: remove them from the luxury and media of Europe/Washington DC and to securely house over 800 staff and attendants. Curbing the participants' ability to negotiate via the media was also an important consideration. Richard Holbrooke wanted to stop the posturing and walls that can be built up due to early leaks to the press.
After having been initialled in Dayton, Ohio on November 21, 1995, the full and formal agreement was signed in Paris on December 14, 1995[2] also by French President Jacques Chirac, U.S. President Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister John Major, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.
The agreement's main purpose is to promote peace and stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to endorse regional balance in and around the former Republic of Yugoslavia (art. V, annex 1-B), thus in a regional perspective.
The present political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its structure of government were agreed upon as part the constitution that makes up Annex 4 of the General Framework Agreement concluded at Dayton. A key component of this was the delineation of the Inter-Entity Boundary Line, to which many of the tasks listed in the Annexes referred.
The State of Bosnia Herzegovina was set as of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and of the Republika Srpska. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a complete state, as opposed to a confederation; no entity or entities could ever be separated from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although highly decentralised in its Entities, it would still retain a central government, with a rotating State Presidency, a central bank and a constitutional court.
The agreement mandated a wide range of international organizations to monitor, oversee, and implement components of the agreement. The NATO-led IFOR (Implementation Force) was responsible for implementing military aspects of the agreement and deployed on the 20th December 1995, taking over the forces of the UNPROFOR. The Office of the High Representative was charged with the task of civil implementation. The OSCE was charged with organising the first free elections in 1996.
On 13 October 1997, the Croatian 1861 Law Party and the Bosnia-Herzegovina 1861 Law Party requested the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to annul several decisions and to confirm one decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and, more importantly, to review the constitutionality of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, since they alleged that the agreement violated the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina in a way that it undermined the integrity of the state and that it may cause the dissolution of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Court reached the conclusion that it is not competent to decide the disputes in regards to the mentioned decisions, since the applicants were not subjects that were identified in Article VI.3 (a) of the Constitution, in regard to those who can refer disputes to the Court. The Court also rejected the other request stating:
(...) the Constitutional Court is not competent to evaluate the constitutionality of the General Framework Agreement as the Constitutional Court has in fact been established under the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to uphold this Constitution (...) The Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina was adopted as Annex IV to the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and consequently there cannot be a conflict or a possibility for controversy between this Agreement and the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[3]
This was one of the early cases in which the Court had to deal with the question of the legal nature of the Constitution. By making the remark in the manner of obiter dictum concerning the Annex IV (the Constitution) and the rest of the peace agreement, the Court actually "established the ground for legal unity"[4] of the entire peace agreement, which further implied that all the annexes are in the hierarchical equality. In later decisions the Court confirmed this by using other annexes of the peace agreement as a direct base for the analysis and not only in the context of systematic interpretation of the Annex IV. However, since the Court rejected the presented request of the appellants, it did not go into details concerning the controversial questions of the legality of the process in which the new Constitution (Annex IV) came to power, and replaced the former Constitution of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Court used the same reasoning to dismiss the similar claim in a later case.[5]
Before the Dayton agreement Bosnian Serbs controlled about 46% of Bosnia and Herzegovina (23,687 km2), Bosniaks 28% (14,505 km2) and Bosnian Croats 25% (12,937 km2).
Bosnian Serbs got large tracts of mountainous territories back (4% of Bosnian Croats and some small amounts from Bosniaks), but they were pressured to surrender Sarajevo and some vital Eastern Bosnian/Herzegovian positions. All in all by changing quality to quantity their percentage grew to 49% (48 if excluding the Brčko District, 24,526 km2) from a little bit more than 46% prior to Dayton.
Bosniaks got most of Sarajevo, and some important positions in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina while they lost only a few locations on mount Ozren and in western Bosnia. Their percentage grew from 28% prior to Dayton to 30% and they greatly upheld quality of the gotten land. Large tracts of prewar Bosniak (and Bosnian Croat) inhabited lands remained under Bosnian Serb Control.[6]
Bosnian Croats gave most (4% of BiH territories) back to the Bosnian Serbs (9% of today's RS), and also retreated from Una-Sana canton as well Donji Vakuf (in Central Bosnia canton) municipality afterward. Small enlargement of Posavina canton (Odžak and parts of Domaljevac municipality) has not changed the fact that after Dayton Bosnian Croats controlled just 21% of Bosnia and Herzegovina (10,640 km2) especially when compared to more than 25% prior to Dayton. It is important to note that one of the most important Bosnian Croat territories (Posavina with Bosanski Brod, Bosanski Šamac, Derventa and Modriča) was still left out of Bosnian Croat control.
Brčko District was divided;
The immediate purpose of the agreement was to freeze the military confrontation, and prevent them at all costs from resuming. It was thefore defined as a "construction of necessity"[7].
Despite this, the Dayton Agreement proved to be a highly flexible instrument, allowing Bosnia and Herzegovina to move from an early post-conflict phase through reconstruction and consolidation, passing from a consociationalist approach to a more integrationist one. Many scholars refers to it as "the most impressive example of conflict resolution"[8]. Wolfgang Petritsch, OHR, has argued that the Dayton framework has allowed the international community to move "from statebuilding via institutions and capacity-building to identity building", putting Bosnia "on the road to Brussels"[9]
Nevertheless, Dayton's three main shortcomings may be traced as to:
According to University of Leipzig professor and Bosnian Academy of Sciences and Arts member Edin Šarčević, the current legal structure of the agreement does not abide by the basic principles of international law and the secular concept of national citizenship, making the Bosnian territorial and political situation continually unstable and fractious since its implementation in 1995.[13]
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