The 1995 Dayton Accords that ended the war in BiH reorganized the state as including two autonomous entities—the Federation of BiH, whose residents are mainly Bosniak and Croat, and the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska (RS)—that operate under a weak central government. The position of head of state is held by a three-member presidency comprising one Bosniak, one Serb, and one Croat; they are each elected to a four-year term, which they serve concurrently.

The chair of the Council of Ministers, or prime minister, is nominated by the presidency and approved by the House of Representatives.

In October 2022, BiH held general elections. Denis Bećirović of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) defeated longtime Bosniak nationalist chief Bakir Izetbegović of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) for the Bosniak seat on the state presidency. Željko Komšić, leader of the multiethnic Democratic Front (DF), defeated Borjana Krišto of the nationalist Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) for the Croat seat. The secessionist Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) from the Serb-dominated RS entity won the Serb seat on the state presidency. An observer mission from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) noted irregularities but called the elections competitive. It further noted that “increasing segmentation along ethnic lines and the corresponding divergent views on the future of the country remain a concern for the functioning of democratic institutions.”

Following the elections, the state-level presidency and government were formed relatively quickly—although both institutions are largely dysfunctional, owing to obstructionist activities by Serb secessionist parties. Government formation in the RS entity also proceeded quickly, despite a recount in the entity’s presidency election.

However, the government formation process in the Federation entity ground to a halt when it became clear that the new Troika coalition—made up of the SDP, the People and Justice party (NiP), and Our Party (NS)—and the HDZ BiH lacked sufficient votes in the entity’s upper chamber, the House of Peoples, to seat a new prime minister. Unwilling to make a deal with the SDA or DF, the Troika urged the High Representative, Christian Schmidt, to change government formation rules. Schmidt did so in April 2023, using the executive Bonn powers to amend the constitution so that only two of three Federation presidency members were needed to support a proposed government. The House of Representatives appointed a government the following day. (The previous Federation government had been operating in a caretaker capacity for its entire mandate because the HDZ BiH had blocked government formation in an effort to secure certain electoral reforms.)

A government was formed in the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton in November. At year’s end, a government had yet to be formed in Canton 10 (Livno), because here too the Troika and HDZ BiH lacked votes and coalition partners.

The Parliamentary Assembly, a state-level body, has two chambers. The 15-seat upper house, the House of Peoples, consists of five members from each of the three main ethnic groups, elected by the Federation and RS legislatures for four-year terms. The lower house, the House of Representatives, has 42 popularly elected members serving four-year terms, with 28 seats assigned to representatives from the Federation and 14 to representatives from the RS.

While the SDA, the HDZ BiH, and the SNSD dominated the October 2022 general elections, they faced significant competition from other parties, particularly the SDP. Polling took place concurrently with the presidential poll, and election monitors noted similar irregularities in both. Turnout was down 3 percent from the previous elections, to just above 50 percent.

The Central Election Commission (CIK) administers elections with the help of municipal election commissions. Both are subject to significant political party interference. The CIK is a largely ineffectual body, unable to act decisively without political support.

Conflicts over fair ethnic representation surround aspects of the constitution and electoral laws. BiH citizens who do not identify as members of the country’s Bosniak, Serb, or Croat “constitutive peoples” remain barred from the presidency and membership in the House of Peoples.

In late August 2023, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued its sixth and most sweeping ruling since 2009 that Bosnia’s constitution and electoral laws violate the European Convention on Human Rights. The court struck down large segments of BiH’s state constitution on grounds that territorial and ethnic restrictions governing whom citizens can vote for were discriminatory. The case was brought by Slaven Kovačević, an advisor to President Željko Komšić, who pointed out that he was constitutionally barred from taking part in the vote for Serb members of the presidency, and argued that the country’s existing political system operated not as a parliamentary democracy of equal citizens but a sectarian “ethnocracy.” The court agreed, saying that Bosnian nationals who belong to minority groups or reject ethnic nationalism are “akin to second-class citizens.”

Political parties typically organize and operate freely, though the political arena in the Federation is generally limited to Bosniaks and Croats, while Serbs control politics in the RS. Coalitions at all levels of government shift frequently, but incumbent parties have tended to maintain their positions with the help of vast patronage networks, making it difficult for smaller reform-oriented groupings to achieve meaningful gains. Election law amendments made by the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in 2022 significantly strengthened the position of the HDZ BiH in the Federation House of Peoples.

The ECtHR’s August 2023 Kovačević ruling suggested that BiH’s electoral and constitutional regime was fundamentally discriminatory and undemocratic and that future constitutional reforms cannot limit the right to free and equal participation in the democratic process in order to protect ethnic-group rights, formally, the rights of the “constituent peoples.” However, there is little to suggest that either the Kovačević ruling or any of the other outstanding ECtHR civil rights rulings against BiH will be implemented in the foreseeable future.

While there are no explicit legal barriers preventing opposition parties from entering government, expansive veto powers granted to the constitutive peoples and their representatives have helped the dominant nationalist parties to manipulate the system and shut out reformist or multiethnic challengers. However, the decisive victory of Denis Bećirović of the SDP over Bakir Izetbegović of the SDA in the October 2022 state presidency race for the Bosniak seat was seen as a major victory for reformist actors.

In 2022, opposition parties in the RS entity alleged widespread irregularities in the region’s elections in favor of the long ruling secessionist SNSD.

In addition to domestic problems like the politicization of public resources and the influence of corrupt patronage networks, the governments of Serbia and Croatia exert leverage in Bosnian politics through their respective local allies, the SNSD and the HDZ BiH. The Russian and Turkish governments have also offered support to preferred parties and candidates.

BiH’s Office of the High Representative (OHR) is an ad hoc international institution mandated with overseeing implementation of civilian aspects of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Between October 2022 and April 2023, High Representative Christian Schmidt amended the constitution and electoral code twice in order to unblock government formation. There are credible reports that the government of Croatia intensively lobbied Schmidt, especially with respect to the first intervention in 2022; Croatian officials have also publicly boasted of their regular but “discreet” communications with Schmidt. In July 2022, local media reported that the Croatian foreign minister had helped directly prepare the OHR’s election law amendments. The scale and frequency of Croatia’s interference in BiH’s domestic politics also saw Slovenia’s president-elect, Nataša Pirc Musar, critique Zagreb’s posture in late 2022, saying Croatian officials were “a little too involved” in BiH. In September 2023, after Komšić criticized Croatia and Serbia for interfering in BiH’s domestic politics, the Croatian foreign minister referred to him as a “pest” and a “parasite.”

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 due to the OHR’s renewed intervention in government formation processes, as well as signs of political interference in OHR decision-making by the government of Croatia.

Political rights in BiH are in large part contingent on one’s ethnic background and place of residence. Jews and Roma are constitutionally barred from the presidency and from membership in the House of Peoples, despite ECtHR rulings against those provisions. Serbs who live in the Federation and Croats and Bosniaks who live in the RS are also excluded from the presidency. Some Croats argue that their rights to representation are violated by electoral laws allowing non-Croats a significant voice in the selection of the Croat member of the presidency and Croat members of the House of Peoples. Critics of the Croat nationalist HDZ BiH, however, counter that the party has manipulated the discourse surrounding this issue to obstruct civic and liberal reforms of the country’s constitutional order.

Women are underrepresented in politics and government. As a result, debates pertaining to maternal health and domestic violence are rarely at the center of parliamentary discussion, although they are openly, if infrequently, discussed in the media. LGBT+ people are marginalized in formal political life, but LGBT+ rights groups are active in the civic sphere. Sarajevo continued to host a Pride march in 2023, with little substantive public opposition.

Government formation and policy implementation are seriously impeded by the country’s complex system of ethnic representation. Under the Dayton Accords, representatives from each of the three major ethnic groups, at both the state and entity levels, may exercise a veto on legislation deemed harmful to their interests. The state government is also undercut by movements within each of BiH’s entities for greater autonomy.

Milorad Dodik, the RS president, maintains expansive control over the entity, and continues to speak openly of his desire for the RS to secede from BiH. In October 2021, he announced the RS’s withdrawal from various federal institutions, notably the military, prompting fears of a secession crisis. The move came largely in response to the OHR’s July 2021 law against genocide denial and was the latest in a series of escalating efforts to chip away at the functionality of the BiH state. Dodik has continued to engage in secessionist rhetoric, including periodic blockades of the inter-entity boundary line. His actions have prompted denunciations and rounds of sanctions against him and his associates by the United States and United Kingdom.

Corruption remains widespread and systemic, and anticorruption legislation is poorly enforced. When probes are actually opened, they rarely result in convictions.

Several high-profile politicians were indicted on corruption charges in 2023, including the mayor of the Sarajevo Stari Grad municipality (one of the wealthiest in the country), who was arrested in May. Nevertheless, critics allege the indictments followed partisan lines, targeting sympathizers and members of the SDA, while corrupt leaders in the parties close to the new Troika coalition in the Federation entity are spared scrutiny.

Few corruption indictments or investigations have taken place in the RS entity, where the Dodik regime is widely understood to wield patrimonial control over the police and courts.

Government operations remain largely inaccessible to the public. Procurement awards are often made in secret, and public institutions frequently fail to comply with freedom of information laws. Candidates for major offices are obliged to make financial disclosures, but the relevant laws are weak, and the resulting disclosures are considered unreliable. Debate and decisions on matters of public interest, including legislation and subjects pertaining to European Union (EU) accession, routinely occur during interparty negotiations that take place behind closed doors, outside of government institutions.

In 2023, a major controversy erupted when it was revealed that the new government had permitted two Russian diplomats who had been recently expelled from North Macedonia to be accredited in BiH. The country’s new foreign minister, Elmedin (Dino) Konaković, whose ministry was responsible for the accreditation, denied wrongdoing and blamed his predecessor.

Freedom of expression is legally guaranteed but limited in practice. Journalists face political pressure as well as harassment, threats, and occasional assaults in the course of their work. There is a large private media sector, including outlets that are affiliated with local political parties and those that belong to major international news networks. Public broadcasters in both entities, and at the canton level, often operate as partisan platforms; this is especially pronounced with the entity broadcaster in the RS, Radio-Television Republika Srpska (RTRS), whose coverage serves the interests of the SNSD.

On a number of occasions during 2022, High Representative Schmidt reacted aggressively to pointed questions by journalists.

In 2023, the RS entity government passed a law criminalizing defamation, and Dodik signed it in August. The move drew widespread condemnation as incompatible with international human rights standards, and warnings that it could be used to stifle free speech and criticism of the Dodik regime both in the RS and across BiH.

Religious freedom is not subject to formal restrictions, but in practice religious communities face some discrimination in areas where they constitute a minority. Acts of vandalism against religious sites continue to be reported.

The education system is racked by corruption and clientelism, and the curriculum is politicized at all levels of education. At some schools in the Federation, Bosniak and Croat students are still divided into separate classes. Some Bosniak returnees in the RS have sent their children to temporary alternative schools to avoid curriculums they find discriminatory, and some Serb families have described discriminatory educational environments in the Federation.

Freedom of expression for individuals is generally protected from overt government interference. However, peer pressure and the risk of an adverse public reaction remain significant curbs on the discussion of sensitive topics.

Freedom of assembly is generally respected in BiH, and peaceful protests are common. However, demonstrators sometimes encounter administrative obstacles or police violence, and organizers can become targets of police or political harassment.

The nongovernmental organization (NGO) sector in BiH remains robust but is sometimes exposed to government pressure and interference, with conditions more difficult in the RS.

Labor unions operate freely in the whole of BiH, although workers often have limited bargaining power in practice. The right to strike is legally protected, but labor laws in the Federation pose significant barriers to the exercise of this right. Legal protections against antiunion action by employers are weakly enforced. The leading political blocs in the country exercise significant control over unions in their respective strongholds.

The judiciary is formally independent but weak in practice. Dozens of Constitutional Court decisions have been disregarded by political leaders, as has some jurisprudence from the ECtHR. Individual judges are also subject to political pressure, interference, and intimidation regarding the cases before them. The High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HJPC), which appoints judges, has been racked by scandals and is widely perceived as corrupt.

The existence of four separate court systems—for BiH, the RS, the Federation, and the self-governing Brčko District—contributes to overall inefficiency.

Successive rounds of US sanctions in 2022 targeted, among other things, criminal elements within the Bosnian prosecutor’s chamber and individuals involved in the refusal of the Croat nationalist HDZ BiH to appoint judges to the Federation’s Constitutional Court.

In March 2023, the Constitutional Court upheld the High Representative’s constitutional and election law changes made in October 2022, but the decision only passed narrowly on account of the chief justice, an HDZ BiH appointee, being allowed to vote twice to break a deadlock on the bench and after the court had failed to reach a decision. The decision was criticized among much of the public and in media as overtly partisan.

In June 2023, secessionist authorities in the RS entity passed a law through which they claimed to have withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court. The High Representative in July invalidated the law but it was nevertheless published in the entity’s public gazette.

Guarantees of due process are inconsistently upheld, with judges often failing to manage trials effectively and contributing to extensive delays. Access to adequate legal counsel can be contingent on one’s financial standing. Police corruption is a problem and sometimes stems from links to organized crime. Public prosecutors are widely reputed to be corrupt and under political control.

The process of prosecuting war crimes in domestic courts has been slow, with political interference and courts’ lack of resources and capacity exacerbating a large backlog of cases. Despite efforts to reinvigorate the process, impunity for war crimes, including killings and sexual violence, has persisted.

Although overall violent crime rates are low, organized crime is a significant problem, and high-profile incidents in recent years have fueled public frustration with the police and judicial system. Members of vulnerable groups are subject to harassment by police, including migrants transiting through the country. Many prisons are overcrowded or feature other substandard conditions, and detainees face physical abuse by prison authorities. Active land mines dating to the 1990s continue to pose a threat to civilians in rural parts of the country.

In 2023, there was a sharp uptick in the number of attacks against Bosniak returnees in the RS entity. This prompted an emergency session of the state parliament in September at which lawmakers passed a measure condemning the violence. However, local police have been criticized for failing to respond to the attacks, and no meaningful steps were taken to provide additional protection to the Bosniak community in northern and eastern BiH.

Laws guaranteeing equal treatment are unevenly upheld. Discrimination against members of the Romany minority is widespread. People who returned to their homes after being displaced during the war face discrimination in employment and housing in regions where their ethnic group constitutes a minority. Bosniak returnees in the RS face notable discrimination and harassment; Bosniaks and Croats in the RS more generally experience difficulties in accessing social services. Women are legally entitled to full equality with men but encounter discrimination in the workplace in practice. Members of the LGBT+ community face discrimination, harassment, and occasional physical attacks, and authorities often fail to adequately investigate and prosecute crimes against LGBT+ people.

Tens of thousands of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers have arrived in the country since 2018. The vast majority travel on to other locations, but thousands remain stranded in BiH. Authorities in the RS have refused to allow any migrant centers, and the burden of care has been thrust almost entirely on a handful of municipalities in the country’s northwest. Treatment of migrants has improved in recent years due to EU funds provided to set up shelters and camps. However, the EU has also been criticized for attempting to effectively refuse entry and keep migrants and refugees in BiH and the region.

The law protects freedom of movement, though there are minor barriers to the exercise of this right—for example, taxis will generally not take passengers across the administrative boundary between the two entities. In August and September 2023, Dodik supporters temporarily blockaded the administrative boundary line, reportedly to express support for the RS leader after he was indicted by the federal prosecutor’s office for failing to implement OHR decisions.

Bureaucratic hurdles make registering new domiciles a tedious and lengthy process. Land mines limit movement in some areas.

Although the legal framework broadly supports property rights and private business activity, widespread corruption and patronage remain major barriers to free enterprise. Individuals who returned to their homes after being displaced by the 1992–95 war have faced attacks on their property. The European Commission has called for further progress on compensating people for property that cannot be returned.

Individual freedoms on personal status matters such as marriage and divorce are generally protected, though same-sex marriage is not recognized.

Domestic violence is considerably underreported, and civic groups have found that law enforcement authorities are often reluctant to intervene or impose strong penalties.

Legal protections against exploitative working conditions are poorly enforced. Patronage and clientelism continue to adversely affect hiring practices and contribute to de facto restrictions on economic opportunity.

While human trafficking remains a problem, the US State Department in its 2023 report noted an increase in antitrafficking efforts, including identifying, prosecuting, and convicting traffickers.