IV 
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 (re-
ferred to in this resolution as ‘‘BiH’’), known as the Day-
ton Peace Accords, brought an end to the brutal conflict 
in that country that was marked by aggression and eth-
nic cleansing, including the commission of war crimes, 
crimes against humanity, and genocide; 
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•HRES 477 IH 
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 com-
plex, fundamentally flawed system of governance and ad-
ministration has been derived; 
Whereas the Dayton Peace Accords included many com-
promises imposed by the need for quick action to pre-
serve human life and bring an end to the conflict in BiH, 
and as a result may have hindered efforts to develop effi-
cient and effective political institutions capable of over-
coming 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 spe-
cific military and political reforms; 
Whereas the Government of BiH took the first important 
step on the road toward European Union (EU) member-
ship by signing a Stabilization and Association Agree-
ment (SAA) with the EU in June 2008; 
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•HRES 477 IH 
Whereas, despite these notable achievements, the Government 
and people of BiH continue to face significant challenges 
in their efforts at integrating into Euro-Atlantic institu-
tions and the country’s economy continues to decline; 
Whereas the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission con-
cluded that the current constitutional arrangements in 
BiH are not conducive to the efficient or rational func-
tioning 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 imple-
ment 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 peo-
ples—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 rep-
resentatives, 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; 
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•HRES 477 IH 
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 sta-
bility, 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 polit-
ical 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 estab-
lished by the Dayton Peace Accords, both being eth-
nically 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 man-
agement or advisory entity—to unilaterally impose ad-
ministrative 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 Catho-
lic Croat Bosnian and Bosniak Muslim communities in 
the FBiH; 
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