[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 477 Introduced in House (IH)]

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114th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 477

  Recommending the designation of a Presidential Special Envoy to the 
       Balkans to evaluate the successes and shortcomings of the 
 implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 
   to provide policy recommendations, and to report back to Congress 
                            within one year.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            October 9, 2015

Ms. Hahn submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
                      Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
  Recommending the designation of a Presidential Special Envoy to the 
       Balkans to evaluate the successes and shortcomings of the 
 implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 
   to provide policy recommendations, and to report back to Congress 
                            within one year.

Whereas, on December 14, 1995, the General Framework Agreement for Peace in 
        Bosnia and Herzegovina (referred to in this resolution as ``BiH''), 
        known as the Dayton Peace Accords, brought an end to the brutal conflict 
        in that country that was marked by aggression and ethnic cleansing, 
        including the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and 
        genocide;
Whereas the Dayton Peace Accords define BiH as a country with three constituent 
        peoples--Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs--to be comprised of two internal 
        entities known as the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and 
        Republika Srpska (RS), from which an extremely complex, fundamentally 
        flawed system of governance and administration has been derived;
Whereas the Dayton Peace Accords included many compromises imposed by the need 
        for quick action to preserve human life and bring an end to the conflict 
        in BiH, and as a result may have hindered efforts to develop efficient 
        and effective political institutions capable of overcoming the 
        challenges required to become an integral member of the Euro-Atlantic 
        community of nation-states;
Whereas, since the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords, the Government and 
        people of BiH have been working in partnership with the international 
        community to achieve progress in building a peaceful and democratic 
        society based on the rule of law, respect for human rights, and a free 
        market economy;
Whereas BiH demonstrated its commitment to the shared values of democracy, 
        security, and stability by joining the Partnership for Peace program of 
        the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in December 2006;
Whereas BiH received a conditional Membership Action Plan status in NATO in 
        April 2010 pending completion of specific military and political 
        reforms;
Whereas the Government of BiH took the first important step on the road toward 
        European Union (EU) membership by signing a Stabilization and 
        Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU in June 2008;
Whereas, despite these notable achievements, the Government and people of BiH 
        continue to face significant challenges in their efforts at integrating 
        into Euro-Atlantic institutions and the country's economy continues to 
        decline;
Whereas the Council of Europe's Venice Commission concluded that the current 
        constitutional arrangements in BiH are not conducive to the efficient or 
        rational functioning of state institutions, hindering the pace of the 
        country's accession to NATO and the EU;
Whereas the Government of BiH has the obligation to implement the ruling of the 
        Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of 
        Sejdic-Finci from 2009 with regard to the election to the Presidency and 
        House of Peoples of BiH of Others, who are defined as those Bosnian 
        citizens who are not primarily a member of the Dayton Accords' 
        stipulated three constitutive peoples--the Serb Bosnians, the Croat 
        Bosnians, and the Muslim Bosnians or Bosniaks;
Whereas reform at any level, including that originating from the implementation 
        of the European Court of Human Rights ruling on the Sejdic-Finci Case, 
        should take into account the protection of equal constitutional rights 
        of all;
Whereas the elections in BiH should reflect the right of the constituent peoples 
        and others to choose their legal representatives, who would therefore 
        represent those people consistent with the founding provisions of the 
        Dayton Peace Accords, as opposed to the existing practice, which allows 
        for the representatives of one people to be elected by the members of 
        other constituent peoples, hindering the political stability of BiH;
Whereas only the full protection of equal political, economic, legal, and 
        religious rights of all the constituent peoples and others throughout 
        the territory of BiH, including the inalienable right to return, will 
        guarantee the future stability, functionality, and effectiveness of the 
        country;
Whereas the number of Bosnian Croats has declined from 820,000 before the war to 
        around 460,000 remaining in BiH today, as reported by the Catholic 
        Church in BiH which has played an important role in protecting rights of 
        Catholic Bosnian Croats and reporting problems and cases of destruction 
        of personal and real property of both the Catholic Church and Croat 
        returnees;
Whereas it is not acceptable that this negative demographic trend is reflected 
        in the reduction of constitutional rights of Bosnian Croats, as that 
        reduction directly causes political and administrative dysfunctionality 
        of the country;
Whereas a functional BiH as a whole is not possible without a fully functional 
        FBiH, one of the two entities established by the Dayton Peace Accords, 
        both being ethnically and administratively composite;
Whereas it is not acceptable for the High Representative--or other regulatory 
        figure established by the Dayton Peace Accords or any other follow-on 
        multilateral management or advisory entity--to unilaterally impose 
        administrative changes affecting the political and economic welfare of 
        the designated constituent peoples of FBiH without a full and proper 
        consultation supported by the mutually agreed upon representatives of 
        both the Catholic Croat Bosnian and Bosniak Muslim communities in the 
        FBiH;
Whereas FBiH's protracted poor functionality only exacerbates the existing 
        predominant separatist tendency in the RS, the predominantly Serb entity 
        of BiH, thus threatening the very integrity of the country as a whole;
Whereas continuous economic decline is a direct consequence of the fact that 
        most of BiH's gross domestic product (GDP) is generated from the 
        publicly owned companies, which are run at the RS and FBiH entity levels 
        by political parties with enduring ethnocentric agendas reflecting their 
        particular and non-common interests, preventing the further creation of 
        much needed free enterprise business development and closely integrated 
        national internal markets;
Whereas the social fabric of BiH is the single most important victim of the war 
        and ensuing political conflict, and the need for repair, strengthening, 
        and further development of civil society is fundamental to the country's 
        recovery and desired development;
Whereas the Republic of Croatia has clearly demonstrated that allegiance to 
        democracy, market economy, rule of law, and respect for human and 
        citizen rights is conducive to full integration into the Euro-Atlantic 
        community, and the Government of Croatia continues to play an active 
        role in contributing to BiH's political stability, internal integrity, 
        and international viability;
Whereas all the other neighbors of BiH share the ambition to join the European 
        Union; and
Whereas the future of BiH is in the European Union and NATO: Now, therefore, be 
        it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) reiterates its support for the sovereignty, territorial 
        integrity, and legal continuity of BiH within its 
        internationally recognized borders, as well as the equality of 
        its three constituent peoples and others within an integrated 
        multiethnic country;
            (2) welcomes steps taken by the government of BiH towards 
        integration into the Euro-Atlantic community and reiterates its 
        position that this commitment is in the interests of the 
        further stabilization of the region of southeastern Europe;
            (3) emphasizes that it is urgent that BiH, as well as its 
        internal political entities, all work toward the creation of an 
        efficient and effective state able to meet its domestic and 
        international obligations with effective and functional 
        institutions, and that the national government of BiH--as well 
        as the institutions of the entities--are able to instill 
        necessary reforms in order to fulfill European Union and North 
        Atlantic Treaty Organization membership requirements;
            (4) reiterates its call that constitutional reform in BiH 
        take the Dayton Peace Accords as its basis, but advance the 
        principles of political, economic, legal, and religious 
        equality and tolerance in order to rectify provisions that 
        conflict with the European Charter of Human Rights and the 
        ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, and to rectify 
        the conditions to enable economic development and the creation 
        of a single economic space, including through the fair and 
        effective functioning of public companies so as to be 
        consistent with the goal of successful EU membership;
            (5) stresses the importance of privatization of the 
        publicly owned enterprises through fully transparent 
        international tenders prepared in close cooperation with the EU 
        and the Office of the High Representative (OHR) as a means of 
        avoiding the misplacement of political attention and energy 
        toward running companies rather than providing effective 
        service to the citizens of the country;
            (6) commends the present focus of the United States 
        Government in support of stronger civil society in BiH, and 
        urges the Department of State to further increase endeavors in 
        that regard;
            (7) believes that the Department of State and the President 
        must seek to address all these matters more emphatically in a 
        manner that provides for a just evaluation of the current 
        grievances of the three constituent peoples and the Others in 
        the two entities of the BiH;
            (8) believes that it is of paramount importance that the 
        United States Government work closely with the EU in conceiving 
        and implementing an accession process specifically made for 
        BiH, which would link in a causal and firmly conditional way 
        the internal integration of BiH with its phased integration 
        into the EU;
            (9) urges that it is substantially beneficial for the 
        process of building up the functional capacities of BiH to the 
        level of its full ability to enable membership in NATO and the 
        EU, that the United States Government work closely with BiH's 
        neighboring countries--especially those who are signatories to 
        the Dayton Peace Accords--ensuring consistency along the lines 
        of their own European ambitions so that they actively 
        contribute to BiH's internal integration and political and 
        administrative functionality conducive to BiH's successful 
        membership in NATO and the EU;
            (10) reiterates that a fully functional Federation of BiH 
        entity is essential for the future of BiH as a functional and 
        stable state and therefore any envisaged reform should take 
        into account protection of the constitutional rights of all, 
        including Bosnian Croats--demographically smallest of the three 
        Dayton Peace Accords recognized constituent peoples in BiH--and 
        prevent further weakening of their position;
            (11) believes that it is important that the United States 
        Government, together with other international actors, support 
        countries of the region in fulfilling their obligations as 
        agreed through the launching of the Sarajevo Process in 2005, 
        reaffirmed in the 2011 Belgrade Declaration, as well as during 
        the Donor Conference held in Sarajevo in April 2012, aimed at 
        ending the protracted refugee and internal-displacement 
        situation in the region of Southeast Europe and finding durable 
        solutions for the refugees and internally displaced persons 
        through the implementation of the Balkans Regional Housing 
        Programme;
            (12) reiterates its call that the United States should 
        designate a Presidential Special Envoy to the Balkans who 
        should work in partnership with the OHR, the EU, NATO, and the 
        political leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as with 
        neighboring countries, to facilitate much needed reforms at all 
        levels of government and society in BiH; and
            (13) urges the Presidential Special Envoy, not later than 
        one year after the date of the adoption of this resolution, to 
        submit to the Committees on Foreign Relations and 
        Appropriations of the Senate and the Committees on Foreign 
        Affairs and Appropriations of the House of Representatives a 
        report with targeted evaluations and discoveries, including to 
        provide proposals on how to address any ongoing difficulties 
        outlined above, as well as ways to overcome any remaining 
        political, economic, legal, or religious inequalities in BiH.
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