• Political elites in power, and in the Republika Srpska in particular, often use complex systems of governance to block or push through policies depending on their parties' interest. The Office of the High Representative (OHR), which has the authority to impose legislation and remove officials, among other powers, oversees functioning of the state. In a controversial move, High Representative Schmidt used these powers in 2022 to address the electoral process, and again in 2023 to enable the formation of the government in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.17
• In January 2023, the Council of Ministers formed a coalition government after the previous year’s election. While agreeing on the coalition was challenging, the day-to-day working of the new government proved even more difficult. The major sticking point in the Council was competing positions towards North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership and EU integration. One of the many examples of clashes was when Finance and Treasury Minister Srđan Amidžić, an ethnic Serb from the SNSD, quarreled with Defense Minister Zukan Helez, an ethnic Bosniak from the Social Democratic Party (SDP), over the defense budget in September.18 The general tendency of the SNSD is to deprive state institutions of larger budgets, thus undermining a stronger state, while the Sarajevo-based political parties are often inclined to increase budgets to the state-level ministries. The defense establishment, once glorified for successfully integrating various armies and ethnically based structures in the aftermath of the Bosnian War, has again come again under pressure as officials push their different views and positions on the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Shortly after Helez’s dispute with Amidžić, he clashed with International Trade and Economic Relations Minister Staša Košarac,19 another ethnic Serb from the SNSD, over a visit by NATO officials to the country.20 Even a minor incident within the Bosnian armed forces involving an assault by one soldier on another, brought conflicting responses from a minister and his deputy on whether the attack was ethnically motivated.21
• The three members of the presidency opposed each other on foreign policy issues throughout the year. They all named their own ambassadors, bogging down the operations of the Bosnian foreign service with redundancy.22 The presidency members’ disagreements around cooperation with NATO and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East also spilled into the public domain. Denis Bećirović, the Bosniak member of the presidency, argued in public with Željka Cvijanović, the Serb member and chairwoman of the presidency at the time, in January 2023 on the country’s NATO prospects, which Cvijanović opposes.23 Cvijanović issued a statement against Bećirović and Željko Komšić, the Croat member, when the two presidency members visited Ukraine in August.24 In October, Komšić criticized Council Chairwoman Krišto’s statement25 condemning attacks on Israel by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas for not also referring to the mistreatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government.26 The presidency has failed to name candidates for judicial appointment at the ECHR, and expert committee, or commission posts at the Council of Europe; it is the only member state not participating fully in the works of the Council.27
• In the FBiH, the formation of a governing coalition was effectively blocked when vice president Refik Lendo, whose SDA was not one of the three parties that had arrived at a coalition agreement, refused to give the mandate to the agreed-upon coalition leader, SDP President Nermin Nikšić.28 The FBiH’s constitution allows an individual member of the FBiH’s leadership (president and two vice-presidents, each from a different ethnic group) to block the formation of a government in order to prevent the imposition of decisions against the will of one ethnic group; Lendo was acting on behalf of one political party, though—albeit a nationalist one—and not an ethnic group. The stalemate was broken in April 2023 when the high representative’s decision to change the necessary legislation and impose new rules made Lendo’s refusal irrelevant and enabled the approval of a new government. However, deputies from the SDA and the Democratic Front (DF) boycotted the vote, claiming the process was illegitimate. Despite the boycott, there were just enough votes in favor to elect the government. The weak federal governing coalition lost its majority in several cantons after individual representatives switched party affiliations or political parties shifted their support at the local level. The system’s emphasis on decentralized governance directly undermined the position of the federal government led by Nikšić.
• In June, the Republika Srpska’s assembly passed laws that invalidate decisions imposed by the Office of the High Representative29 and judgements by the state’s Constitutional Court in the entity’s territory, thereby undermining Bosnia and Herzegovina’s constitutional order. High Representative Schmidt annulled these laws in a counterdecision in July,30 and imposed changes to the criminal code of Bosnia and Herzegovina making the non-execution of his decisions a criminal offence.31 However, Republika Srpska president Dodik continued to defy Schmidt, issuing two decrees later that month affirming the RS’s legal changes.32 The state prosecutor subsequently charged Dodik with criminal offences, and the trial started in October with defense putting forward demands to disqualify and replace judges and move the trial to Banja Luka. As well as attempting to nullify official actions taken at the national level, Dodik and other RS representatives continued to embrace divisive rhetoric throughout the year and question the legitimacy and functionality of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.33

• As 2023 represented a gap between general and local elections, major political parties concentrated on new legislation and electoral reforms. Bosnian politicians have debated the changes necessary to prevent discrimination in the electoral process that have been debated since 2009, when the European Court of Human Rights made its first decision on the subject in the case of Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina.34 That decision and several subsequent rulings35 that held that Bosnian electoral law is discriminatory against “persons not affiliated with the constituent peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina or those failing to meet a combination of the requirements of ethnic origin and place of residence as regards their right to stand for election to the House of Peoples and the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” in the words of a 2021 Council of Ministers resolution—that is, persons not declaring themselves to be either Bosniaks, Serbs, or Croats—or candidates attempting to stand for election in areas where their personal ethnicity differs from the local majority36 have yet to be implemented despite increased demands by domestic political actors and the international community for these electoral changes to occur.37
• The latest case to reach the ECHR this year was Kovačević v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was a strong indictment of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s electoral framework and added urgency to the need for electoral reform. This case is based specifically on discriminatory legislation restricting voting rights, in particular by restricting choice of candidates. The person bringing the case was challenging his inability to vote for an ethnic Serb for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s presidency because he lived in the FBiH and not in the RS; the same restriction also prevented RS citizens from choosing Bosniak or Croat candidates. The ECHR held in August that this situation was discriminatory, reconfirming the incompatibility of the Dayton Agreement’s ethnically based power-sharing arrangements with the European Convention on Human Rights and the principle of all citizens’ equality.38 Reactions to the ruling showed political actors’ polarized positions on electoral reform; it was “welcomed by the proponents of a civic Bosnia and Herzegovina as a foundation for future reforms, while the representatives of ethnic parties criticized it for, as they interpreted it, trying to erase the category of constituent peoples,” according to a regional think tank. RS president Dodik said, “BiH based on a civic principle cannot survive. Yugoslavia could not do it, Belgium cannot do it now.” The nationalist Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) released a statement saying, “The Croatian National Assembly believes that certain interpretations of the ruling ‘Kovačević v. Bosnia and Herzegovina’ and other rulings passed as a result of the political activism of unitarian politicians from Bosnia and Herzegovina before the European Court of Human Rights cannot call into question the equality of Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs.”39
• The ECHR’s ruling poses potential challenges to the HDZ BiH’s consistent argument that that candidates from the ethnic Croat community—the smallest of the three constituent peoples—were disadvantaged by Bosnia and Herzegovina’s current arrangement, as races for Croat seats on the presidency and some local councils were being determined by votes from the numerically superior Bosniak population. HDZ BiH has continued to press for electoral reforms to address the ethnic Croat community’s numerical disadvantage by, in essence, requiring the winning candidate to have a majority of votes in cantons dominated by Croats.
• International ambassadors on the Peace Implementation Council, an international body supporting the implementation of the Dayton Agreement through the high representative, called attention to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s lack of progress in updating its electoral framework in an October statement, criticizing state authorities for failing “to bring the Election Law in line with international standards on transparency and integrity of electoral processes and good practices for democratic elections.”40 Progress remains stalled because all parties obstruct the process and show little, if any, will to reach a compromise, thus further polarising their original antagonistic positions.
• In its October 2023 announcement of sanctions against RS president Dodik’s children in October, the US government charged that “the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), including Dodik and [his son] Igor, conspired to bribe political officials, polling station members, and election observers in effort to corruptly win the election.” The statement added that “Igor engaged in bribery of opposition politicians, who were offered political appointments in exchange for critical information and election observer positions at polling locations.”41

• In 2018, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Ministry of Justice had announced with great ceremony three new websites that would purportedly provide information on civil society organizations. Two of these websites do not currently work. The third lists the overall number of NGOs and foundations at 25,646, but that tally has not been updated since at least 2022, and more likely since 2018, when the websites were first unveiled and the initial project of setting up the register of such organizations was completed. The Ministry of Justice is responsible for collecting civil society organizations’ financial reports, but it has been unable to do so for several years because entity- and canton-level legislation does not align with state-level and international requirements. Civil society organizations have not been provided with adequate information about their obligations to submit reports, leading to a lack of proper reporting across the sector.42
• Public institutions did not create mechanisms to improve the protection of activists in 2023. The current legislation is vague and open to interpretation by local authorities. In January 2023, civil society organizations initiated a process to adopt stricter legislation protecting activists and people involved in citizens’ initiatives in the FBiH.43 The initiative was launched due to ongoing pressure on activists, especially environmental activists, including strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), physical and verbal threats from companies and businesspeople, and unreasonable demands by local authorities.44
• In March 2023, several activists were violently attacked and injured by a group of what one of the victims said were “hooligans” in Banja Luka, hours after the police banned an LGBT+ rights event planned by several groups. The attack represented a serious deterioration in the environment facing activists in the RS.45 Adding to the threat against the entity’s nongovernmental sector and civil society, the activists were attacked outside the local offices of the influential NGO Transparency International, which has brought legal cases against RS institutions and officials.
• Civic organizations connected to political parties continue to dilute Bosnia and Herzegovina’s civic sector, providing a smokescreen for government actions masked as civil society. Some parties tried to capitalize in April on the groups of citizens protesting before the OHR building in Sarajevo over the imposed changes to the Electoral Law. The protests appeared to be organized informally by a coalition of interest groups (some linked to political parties) which feared that the changes would restrict the influence of “civic parties” to only Bosniak-dominated territory.46 However, Bosniak nationalist political parties exploited these apparently grassroots protests to serve as evidence that the electoral changes disadvantaged Bosniaks.
• Environmental activism remains one of the most vibrant forms of resistance in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Two activist groups, the Aarhus Centres and Greens Neretva (Zeleni Neretva), supported by local citizens living near the Neretvica River, succeeded in legally forcing the public power company Elektroprivreda BiH to make all information on plans to construct hydroelectric plants on the river public; eventually, in May, the company abandoned the plans and cancelled the contracts already awarded due to public pressure.47 The same groups of activists continued their actions to prevent similar developments on the Ljuta River.48
• Strike actions, like the miners’ strike in Zenica in the spring, were organized throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2023.49 Higher inflation rates and mismanagement were the primary causes of the strikes, which are common in Bosnia and Herzegovina but rarely receive adequate responses from authorities.
• The LGBT+ community faces various forms of discrimination, exclusion, violence, invisibility, and isolation. Sarajevo held its fourth annual Pride march in June 2023, with a heavy police presence and no violent incidents reported. A counterprotest attracted a few extremists, who cited religious and nationalist reasons for opposing the LGBT+ celebration. The SDA, which took a conservative social line, issued a statement protesting the traffic stoppages caused by the parade.50
• Throughout the year, Sarajevo mayor Karić undermined freedom of expression in the capital by selectively granting or refusing requests to project certain colors or symbols on the City Hall without giving clear rationales for her denials. For example, she denied requests by the LGBT+ community to project rainbow colors onto Sarajevo City Hall during Pride. Following widespread public criticism over the decision, the mayor demanded later in June that the city councilors agree to stop the practice of projecting symbols onto the building altogether.51
• Following several cases of femicide throughout the country, women in Sarajevo and several other cities participated in protest marches throughout the summer demanding changes to criminal legislation and the specific criminalization of femicide. The legislation has not been changed, however.52
• In September, the RS parliament adopted a draft “foreign agent law,” ignoring protests from the civil sector and international observers who claimed that the draft would lead to increased surveillance of NGOs receiving financing from abroad, including requiring them to submit to increased registration and financial reporting requirements, and would bar them from political activities.53 In an ironic retort, civil society organizations facetiously proposed a broader law that would include official institutions as “foreign agents” because they are also receiving money from abroad.54 The foreign agent law is one of several pieces of legislation proposed in 2023 that, if passed, could undermine civic activism. A global civil society organization put Bosnia and Herzegovina on its watchlist of “countries experiencing rapid declines in civic freedoms following laws challenging the judiciary and attacks against activists and civil society,” and rated its civic space as “narrowed.”55
• The police in Banja Luka and Mrkonjić Grad, both in the Republika Srpska, banned a gathering of antifascist organizations on November 25 marking the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the State Antifascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ZAVNOBiH) as the legislative body of Partisan-held Bosnia and Herzegovina during World War II; the anniversary was celebrated as “Statehood Day” in the FBiH, but was not an official holiday in the RS and was and largely ignored there.56 At the same time, RS officials continue to celebrate the entity’s own “Statehood Day” every 9th January, celebrating Bosnian Serbs’ declaration of a creation of Serbian Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992 despite rulings by Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Constitutional Court that the holiday was illegal because it discriminated against ethnic Bosniaks and Croats.57 In 2022, the high representative had threatened action if the RS repeated the celebrations, but Schmidt so far has not taken any steps.

• The media market is oversaturated in BiH, making many outlets dependent on noncommercial funding sources and thus allowing authorities to exercise undue influence at various levels.58 Beyond the pressures exerted by editors and political actors, journalists are also exposed to frequent violence and threats. Still, some media organizations provide independent platforms for investigative journalism.59
• In assessing the deteriorating media environment in 2023, the EU representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina wrote that “top officials of the Republika Srpska threatened or insulted journalists and media, critically minded journalists' property was destroyed, they were beaten, and police agencies pressured them to uncover their sources of information.” He described the situation in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as slightly better. Still, “politicians and institutions used their power to attack and pressure journalists” in the FBiH.60
• Republika Srpska authorities passed a law in July criminalizing defamation, reversing course after Bosnia and Herzegovina had decriminalized defamation two decades ago and chilling freedom of speech and expression in the RS. Members of the entity’s assembly passed the law despite strong protests from journalists, civil society, international representatives, and ordinary citizens.61 The recriminalization of defamation in Republika Srpska also alarmed UN experts in Geneva.62 This was followed by the proposal of several concerning draft laws in the RS that could endanger independent media and freedom of expression, according to organizations like the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ). The decline of media freedoms in Bosnia and Herzegovina is not restricted to the RS, although the situation in that entity is worse, and should be understood “against a backdrop of new restrictive laws” and general countrywide “hostile rhetoric and denigration of journalists by public officials, and ongoing systemic challenges to the independence of public service media,” according to a statement released by a coalition of the EFJ and partner organizations known as the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR).63
• A draft law on offenses to public order in Sarajevo Canton was submitted to the canton’s assembly, then withdrawn in June after widespread criticism that it “might lead towards censorship and self-censorship.” The proposal would have given powers to the police to decide whether certain information is “fake news.”64 Many local and international organizations, like the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and Transparency International, criticized the attempt by the local authorities to target freedom of speech and internet rights.65
• Smears and hate speech against journalists has been widespread throughout 2023. Six cases of threats and attacks on journalists were reported during just one week in February.66
• Even the Bosnian diaspora participated in the threatening of local journalists. For example, Jasmin Mulahusić,67 a Bosnian influencer living in Luxembourg with a strong social media following, was found in 2023 to be “verbally abusing, threatening and exposing … journalists in BH to security risks for years.” While the Bosnian Prosecutor’s Office has linked Mulahusić to “terrorist activities” for some time, the authorities did not adequately respond and sanction Mulahusić and thus failed, according to experts, “to protect the rights and safety of journalists.”68 Hate speech by Mulahusić and others was used against independent journalist Dalija Hasanbegović, who said she was targeted in part because she is married to Bosnian foreign minister Elmedin Konaković. The Coalition for Women in Journalism, an international NGO, demanded in March that the Prosecutor’s Office bring charges, to no avail.69 Mulahusić also issued threats against independent journalist Almedin Šišić, publishing his address and the telephone number in July.70
• In January, an editor at the commercial television channel O Kanal, Kenan Ćosić, broadcast an interview with the director of a propaganda film about Republika Srpska. Ćosić was repeatedly threatened privately and in posts on social networks, including death threats. A photo of his close relatives was also published, alongside names of female members of the family.71
• Bosnian journalists’ associations pointed out in a July report that “a few years ago, the efficiency of the judiciary was only 33 percent in terms of dealing with attacks and threats against journalists; last year, that percentage was even lower—25.4 percent.”72 The High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s judicial self-regulatory body, recommended in May that all prosecutors’ offices in the country appoint prosecutors specializing in crimes against journalists and the media, but this has not yet been implemented. International organizations promoting freedom of expression showed their concerns during a visit by an MFRR delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina, describing “media freedom in survival mode.”73
• In October, the official online platforms of institutions in the Republika Srpska moved overnight from “.net” to “.rs,” shifting from an American-run domain to a Serbian-run address. Following the sudden change, the old addresses no longer function, while the new ones have yet to be widely known. The shift reflects Dodik’s continued refusal to use the Bosnian state domain “.ba” and his allegiance to Serbia.74

• Local self-government in Bosnia and Herzegovina remains highly dependent on events at the national level and party coalitions established at the state level. This provides an additional obstacle to local governance and destabilizes local alliances. Historically, local governments have been major job providers, which has created opportunities for misuse by political leaders and fueled patronage networks spanning the local and national levels.
• In April, the Republika Srpska changed the status of Prnjavor into that of a city, making it the 11th city in the entity.75 The remaining 53 boroughs in the RS have the status of municipality. The practice of incorporating municipalities and transforming them into cities is intended to provide opportunities to attract investors and funding. The number of cities in the FBiH remained unchanged in 2023, at 23.
• In May, the mayor of Stari Grad, in the City of Sarajevo, was arrested for alleged involvement in organized crime.76 Also in May, the former mayors of Sarajevo and of the Sarajevo Canton municipality of Ilidža, both of whom were serving as ambassadors at the time, were arrested—the former for purportedly misusing his power and city funds to benefit himself and his associates,77 and the latter for the alleged illegal issuing of building permits and illegal employment. The accused officials were removed from their jobs in the diplomatic service, where they had been positioned by the SDA when party members had been serving on the presidency and as foreign minister.
• The discriminatory practice known as “two schools under one roof,” which segregates children of Croat and Bosniak ethnicity by having them attend separate schools in the same building, has not changed despite advocacy by Bosnian civil society and by international organizations like the OSCE.78 Children in 56 schools in three cantons—Central Bosnia, Zenica-Doboj, and Herzegovina-Neretva—remained subjected to segregated education in 2023. In Travnik, the capital of Central Bosnia, the policy was ended when a new school building opened in June, although most attendees of the new school were Bosniak anyway.79 In Vitez, also in Central Bosnia, there was an effort to integrate the children when a dance school was opened in May.80
• Local governments in 2023 continued to perpetuate discriminatory practices and fail in their transitional justice commitments. In Sarajevo in March, a recently erected plaque marking the deaths of civilians during the siege of the city in the 1990s was sprayed with graffiti that glorified the perpetrators of those war crimes.81 However, the text on the plaque itself has also been criticized for not providing a complete account of the killings’ victims; Mayor Karić did not consult experts before putting up the monument, and requests from the Association for Social Research and Communications to correct the text have been ignored.82 In October, the Association of War Veterans and Antifascists in Mostar announced lawsuits against local authorities, alleging they were not doing enough to solve vandals’ attacks on the Partisans Memorial Cemetery. More than a year after the vandalization and destruction of the monuments there, there are still no signs of investigation.83

• The complexity of the political model in Bosnia and Herzegovina is reflected in the judicial system, which operates at several administrative levels: national, entity, and the self-governing Brčko District, each with its separate judiciaries. This, coupled with ten cantonal court systems in the FBiH, has resulted in an inefficient system where jurisdictions are not clearly delineated.84
• Courts and judges remain subject to political pressure. For example, an act passed by the National Assembly of Republika Srpska in April 202385 called on Bosnian Serb judges to leave the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, resulted in the retirements of two such judges.86 Politicians from the RS then used the manufactured crisis in the Constitutional Court to counter policies that they opposed. Dodik continued his previous demands on several occasions to make legislative changes that would bar three foreign judges currently sitting on the Constitutional Court from continuing to work there, and allow only domestic judges to serve on the court.
• In another move undermining the constitutional order of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the RS National Assembly adopted legislation in June, which Dodik confirmed in July, that makes Constitutional Court judgements nonapplicable within the Republika Srpska. The District Public Prosecutor’s Office in Banja Luka initiated a lawsuit against High Representative Schmidt after Dodik submitted a report arguing that Schmidt’s “conducts the work of high representative without the authorization and with no decision by the Security Council of the UN.”87 It was this set of political decisions that led to Dodik’s indictment by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. His trial is still ongoing.
• Still, the independence and impartiality of the judiciary improved in some ways in 2023, as evidenced by the start of Dodik’s trial for his undermining of the Office of the High Representative. In addition, the arrests of two former and one current mayor for their alleged criminal actions while in office represent a small step forward.
• Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina submitted a lawsuit in July against the state prosecutor, Milenko Kajganić, for allegedly failing to assign cases to prosecutors through an automatic distribution system, The system had put in place to prevent judges from granting leniency to politicians and other powerful figures based on their connections, and to stop clientelism and corruption in the judiciary. Kajganić’s predecessor had been removed in 2021 because of a similar failure to use the system.88
• Institutions and elected officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s justice system continue to ignore international obligations for transparency. The presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina has not provided candidates for an open judge position on the European Court of Human Rights.89 Bosnia and Herzegovina has also failed in its obligation to appoint members to other bodies in the Council of Europe, including the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), and the Venice Commission (officially the European Commission for Democracy through Law) .90
• State institutions have still not adopted legislation following the ECHR decisions on the equality of citizens and against discrimination in the series of cases beginning with Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina in December 2009. The latest decision against Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2023, Kovačević v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, was appealed by the official agents of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the ECHR. However, the mandate of these representatives, who were appointed by the previous governing coalition, is questionable, as a temporary extension of their mandate has expired and is not renewable. Moreover, the representatives appear to remain accountable to the parties that appointed them, rather than to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s current government. When the representatives act before the court, they do so under the title of “agent of Bosnia and Herzegovina.” However, when the ECHR asked the Bosnian Council of Ministers in October for more information on whether the agents were legal and legitimate, Chairwoman Krišto refused to put the matter on the agenda.91 Krišto belongs to the HDZ BiH party, which supports changes to the electoral law that would be contrary to the principles asserted in the Kovačević v. Bosnia-Herzegovina judgement.

• A report by Transparency International and the Balkan Investigative Research Network (BIRN) described “lengthy judicial processes, inadequate indictments, frequent changes of the trial chambers and minimal penalties” in their report on corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina in October.92 According to this report, corruption remains endemic, with no legal cases brought for political corruption. In general, anticorruption legislation is largely unharmonized between the various levels of government and does not follow international standards.
• A three-year-long court case against former FBiH prime minister Fadil Novalić; Fahrudin Solak, the head of the Civil Protection Service; and Fikret Hodžić, the owner of a raspberry-producing company that was awarded an infamously speculative contract to purchase ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic, ended in a guilty verdict in February. Novalić’s attorney had previously accused the US and British embassies of influencing the case against her client.93 The attorney reiterated her statement following the sentencing,94 allegations which the US embassy vehemently denied.95
• In March 2023, the US Department of the Treasury sanctioned three Bosnians over a law passed by the Republika Srpska in April 2022 that “directly challenged BiH’s constitutional order” by asserting that Bosnia and Herzegovina’s government did not have authority over immovable state property located in the RS. In the same designation, the US Treasury also sanctioned Edin Gačanin, a Bosnian narcotics trafficker.96 In October, RS President Dodik’s adult children, Igor and Gorica Dodik, were targeted by sanctions as part of Dodik’s “patronage network,” which allowed him “to siphon public funds from the RS and enrich himself and his family at the expense of BiH citizens and functional governance in the country.”97 Finally, in November, three Bosnian Serb officials were sanctioned by the United States for “corruption and malign influences.”98
• In October 2023, the Republika Srpska adopted legislation amending its Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest. Still, the civic sector observed that the new law opened up additional opportunities for corruption by allowing elected RS officials to serve at the same time on the supervisory boards of associations and foundations receiving less than 100,000 marks ($55,720) from the budget.99 The opposition claimed that the law leaves broad spaces for misuse,100 and came up with their own proposals in October.101 In the FBiH, the implementation of an equivalent law adopted in 2013 has hit roadblocks, as it is unclear which institution should lead the process and efforts to amend the legislation to clarify it were put on ice in September. Thus the FBiH law, already old and inadequate, is not being implemented because of the lack of institutional competence, while amendments or a new law are not actively being considered.
• After years of delay, changes to the Law on the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council were adopted in September 2023. The changes required judges and prosecutors to report their assets for verification, and laid out disciplinary procedures to hold members of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council accountable. However, legal experts expressed concerns that the adopted legislation did not state some norms sufficiently clearly.102 Furthermore, following the announcement that the law would enter into force on December 23, the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council proposed postponing implementation because of their lack of capacity to conduct all the required checks before judicial appointments.103
• The Council of Ministers removed proposed laws that are part of the EU’s 14 priorities for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s advancement in the EU accession process—including a proposed Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest—from its agenda in October 2023. Members of RS president Dodik’s SNSD party on the Council had conditioned their support for the law on the relocation of the Appellate Division of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Banja Luka, which their coalition partners at the state level opposed by proposing East Sarajevo as the location.104
• Sebija Izetbegović was finally removed in November 2023 as director of Sarajevo’s largest hospital, the Sarajevo Clinical Centre, following investigations by the university and cantonal prosecutors for over a year into allegations that she had forged the evidence she presented that she had received a master’s degree in medicine. Earlier in the year, the University of Sarajevo’s senate had revoked her doctoral and master’s degrees and her teaching contract as a professor of medicine. Nevertheless, she remains a representative in the canton’s assembly as a member of the SDA, party led by her husband.105 Additional scandals involving fake and purchased degrees were uncovered in 2023 in both the FBiH and the RS: in Una-Sana Canton in the FBiH, authorities discovered 148 fake university degrees, resulting in criminal charges, while RS education inspectors ordered the revocation of 110 university degrees and the correction of 126 more.106

Author: Neven Andjelic teaches international relations and human rights at Regent’s University, London, where he is the BA International Relations course leader. He is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Bologna. Dr. Andjelic is a member of the Committee for Political Sciences at the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He served on the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Council of Europe, in 2014–18. Dr. Andjelic was a Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics and a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to his academic activities, he is an activist on human rights issues. He had a career in journalism, including with CNN and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and is active in Bosnian media where he is frequently interviewed and publishes columns, as well as in media in Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro. Dr. Andjelic has published numerous articles and two books in English, Bosnia-Herzegovina: The End of a Legacy (Frank Cass Publishers, 2003) and COVID-19, State-Power and Society in Europe: Focus on Western Balkans (Springer, 2022).