IV 
113TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 705 
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 
JULY 31, 2014 
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 705 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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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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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 FBiH’s protracted poor functionality only exacer-
bates the existing predominant separatist tendency in the 
RS, the predominantly Serb entity of BiH, thus threat-
ening 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 polit-
ical parties with enduring ethnocentric agendas reflecting 
their particular and non-common interests, preventing 
the further creation of much-needed free enterprise busi-
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•HRES 705 IH 
ness 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 condu-
cive to full integration into the Euro-Atlantic community, 
and the Government of Croatia continues to play an ac-
tive role in contributing to BiH’s political stability, inter-
nal 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 com-
munity and reiterates its position that this commit-
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ment 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 in-
stitutions of the entities—are able to instill nec-
essary 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 Eu-
ropean 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; 
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(5) stresses the importance of privatization of 
the publicly owned enterprises through fully trans-
parent international tenders prepared in close co-
operation with the EU and the Office of the High 
Representative (OHR) as a means of avoiding the 
misplacement of political attention and energy to-
ward running companies rather than providing effec-
tive service to the citizens of the country; 
(6) commends the present focus of the United 
States Government in support of stronger civil soci-
ety 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 enti-
ties 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 ac-
cession process specifically made for BiH, which 
would link in a causal and firmly conditional way the 
internal integration of BiH with its phased integra-
tion into the EU; 
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(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 mem-
bership in NATO and the EU, that the United 
States Government work closely with BiH’s neigh-
boring countries—especially those who are signato-
ries to the Dayton Peace Accords—ensuring consist-
ency along the lines of their own European ambi-
tions so that they actively contribute to BiH’s inter-
nal integration and political and administrative 
functionality conducive to BiH’s successful member-
ship in NATO and the EU; 
(10) reiterates that a fully functional Federa-
tion 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 Day-
ton Peace Accords recognized constituent peoples in 
BiH—and prevent further weakening of their posi-
tion; 
(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 
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launching of the Sarajevo Process in 2005, re-
affirmed 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 enactment 
of this Act, 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 tar-
geted evaluations and discoveries, including to pro-
vide proposals on how to address any ongoing dif-
ficulties outlined above, as well as ways to overcome 
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any remaining political, economic, legal, or religious 
inequalities in BiH. 
Æ 
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