IV 
110TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 679 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the continuing 
effects of the genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in 
Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
SEPTEMBER 25, 2007 
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey submitted the following resolution; which was 
referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regard-
ing the continuing effects of the genocide, crimes against 
humanity, and war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
Whereas H. Res. 199 and S. Res. 134 (109th Congress) re-
solved that from April 1992 to November 1995, Serb 
forces committed aggression and genocide against the Re-
public of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its population, 
with the direct support from authorities in Serbia and 
Montenegro; 
Whereas the perpetrators and the supporters of the aggres-
sion and genocide, including the Yugoslav People’s Army 
and its Ministry of Interior, the Army of Republika 
Srpska, the Police of Republika Srpska, and other reg-
ular and paramilitary forces under Serb control, intended 
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•HRES 679 IH 
to destroy, through slaughter, rape, torture, and expul-
sion, the unique multiethnic culture of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina woven through a thousand years of toler-
ance, respect, mutual trust, and dignified coexistence of 
all of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s ethnically and religiously 
diverse citizens; 
Whereas the International Criminal Tribunal for the former 
Yugoslavia (ICTY) has found numerous Serb political 
and military officials guilty of committing war crimes, 
crimes against humanity, and the crime of genocide 
against the non-Serb population of the Republic of Bos-
nia and Herzegovina; 
Whereas the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its judg-
ment of February 26, 2007, ruled that the execution of 
more than 7,000 civilians in and around Srebrenica in 
July 1995 by the institutions of the then self-styled 
Republika Srpska entity, and in particular its army and 
police, was a crime of genocide, as defined by the Con-
vention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime 
of Genocide; 
Whereas Srebrenica and other areas of eastern Bosnia from 
which the victims of genocide hail continues to be under 
the jurisdiction of the Republika Srpska entity and its in-
stitutions, especially the Police of Republika Srpska, that 
committed genocide; 
Whereas the ICJ also ruled that Serbia had violated the Con-
vention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime 
of Genocide by failing to prevent the genocide in Bosnia 
and Herzegovina and punish its perpetrators; 
Whereas the ICJ’s judgment declares that significant sections 
of the documents detailing the proceedings of the Su-
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•HRES 679 IH 
preme Defense Council of the Federal Republic of Yugo-
slavia (later Serbia and Montenegro) were redacted and 
therefore not available to the ICJ at the time of that 
judgment; 
Whereas the findings of the RS Srebrenica Commission re-
port unequivocally stated that Republic of Srpska’s Inte-
rior Ministry (i.e. the Police of Republika Srpska) has 
‘‘failed to provide specific data on several hundred indi-
viduals deployed in Srebrenica in July 1995 under the di-
rect or indirect auspices of the RS’’; 
Whereas the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina concluded that the Srebrenica Commission 
‘‘must complete the list of names, currently standing at 
892, of those implicated in the Genocide who are cur-
rently employed in BH or Republic of Srpska institu-
tions, and forward a completed list to the BH Prosecutor 
and to the ICTY.’’; 
Whereas all countries are obliged not to recognize as lawful 
the situation created by the crime of aggression and the 
crime of genocide, as well as to cooperate in the applica-
tion of measures designed to eliminate the consequences 
of such crimes; 
Whereas the General Framework Agreement for Peace in 
Bosnia and Herzegovina (commonly referred to as the 
‘‘Dayton Peace Accords’’), that was made possible 
through the strong leadership of the United States, ended 
the aggression, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against 
humanity 
against 
the 
Republic 
of 
Bosnia 
and 
Herzegovina and its non-Serb population, but it failed to 
achieve its intended goal of reversing the effects of those 
crimes; 
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•HRES 679 IH 
Whereas due to the failure to ensure sustainable return of 
refugees and displaced persons to their homes of origins, 
as guaranteed by Annex VII of the Dayton Peace Ac-
cords, the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina 
(Annex IV of the Dayton Peace Accords) has evolved into 
an ethno-territorial arrangement that now institutional-
izes the results of the genocide, crimes against humanity, 
and war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina; 
Whereas one of the most ominous of the ethno-territorial pro-
visions of this Constitution is an entity voting mecha-
nism, which allows a small number of Serb deputies from 
Republika Srpska in the Parliament of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, constituting less than one-quarter of the 
Parliament, to block any proposed legislation or decision; 
Whereas the entity voting mechanism has been used to block 
various crucial State-level legislation, including the pro-
posed changes to the Citizenship Law of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina which in its current form threatens to per-
manently deny over 500,000 Bosnians their Bosnian citi-
zenship, effectively continuing the project of genocide and 
ethnic cleansing; 
Whereas 300,000 Bosnian-Americans live in the United 
States as fully engaged citizens with a significant poten-
tial to further strengthen the ties between the United 
States and Bosnia and Herzegovina; 
Whereas the political leadership of the Republika Srpska en-
tity has continuously blocked all attempts to move beyond 
the ethno-territorial basis of the Dayton Constitution and 
create a fully democratic and functioning system of gov-
ernment, as has been demonstrated by, among other 
things, the Republika Srpska entity’s unwillingness to 
agree to the reform of the police force structures within 
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•HRES 679 IH 
Bosnia and Herzegovina in line with the standards de-
manded by the European Union; 
Whereas Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that 
the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina need ‘‘a stronger 
energetic state capable of advancing the public good’’ and 
pledged that the United States will remain a dedicated 
partner to Bosnia and Herzegovina as it moves toward 
further Euro-Atlantic integration; 
Whereas Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nich-
olas Burns has unequivocally stated that the Dayton 
Peace Accords ‘‘cannot be the way that the people of 
Bosnia and Herzegovina organize themselves for the next 
ten years’’ and that ‘‘it is time for [the people of] Bosnia 
and Herzegovina . . . to go beyond the Dayton Accords 
and to build a modern constitutional state’’; 
Whereas the European Parliament and the Parliamentary 
Assembly of the Council of Europe have recently adopted 
Resolutions calling for an in-depth reform of the Dayton 
constitutional arrangements, and particularly for the re-
duction and elimination of the entity voting mechanism; 
Whereas there continues to be, within Republika Srpska eth-
nic exclusivity, which has effectively discouraged and pre-
vented the return of the ethnically-cleansed non-Serb 
population to this region of Bosnia and Herzegovina; and 
Whereas the constitutional arrangements of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina must satisfy the interests of all of its people 
by guaranteeing full civil, cultural, individual, and reli-
gious rights to all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 
and promoting the integration of the entire region of 
Southeast Europe into the Euro-Atlantic political and se-
curity structures: Now, therefore, be it 
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•HRES 679 IH 
Resolved, That— 
(1) it is the sense of the House of Representa-
tives that— 
(A) Bosnia and Herzegovina should begin 
the process of adopting a new constitution that 
is based on civic representation and that fully 
eliminates the ethno-territorial arrangements 
which reflect and institutionalize the effects of 
the genocide, war crimes, and crimes against 
humanity 
committed 
in 
Bosnia 
and 
Herzegovina; 
(B) the new constitution should advance 
the principles of civic democracy, full equality 
of citizens, tolerance and protection of all ethnic 
groups, and should reflect the highest standards 
of individual human rights and liberties; 
(C) the new constitution should eliminate 
the ethnic power-sharing principles that reflect 
the ethnic divisions imposed by the perpetrators 
of the genocide, crimes against humanity, and 
war crimes; 
(D) the new constitution must restructure 
the ethno-territorial organization of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina and eliminate its division into enti-
ties, cantons, and municipalities with a view to 
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•HRES 679 IH 
creating a single, unified economic space and 
increasing efficiency and sustainability of the 
country and its governing apparatus; 
(E) the entity voting mechanism, which 
has proved to be a serious obstacle to the func-
tioning of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Par-
liament, must be eliminated; 
(F) Srebrenica and other areas of eastern 
Bosnia should be placed under the exclusive ju-
risdiction of the institutions of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina in order to ensure that the situa-
tion created by genocide is not recognized as 
lawful; 
(G) the police reform in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina must create a single police struc-
ture, replacing entity police forces with a single 
police at the state level, and in particular elimi-
nating the Police of the Republika Srpska enti-
ty, which was identified in the ICJ judgment as 
one of the institutions of Republika Srpska that 
participated in the commission of the crime of 
genocide; 
(H) the Republika Srpska entity cannot 
persist under its current name which represents 
the ethnically-exclusive political philosophy of 
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•HRES 679 IH 
its founders and which perpetuates the effects 
of the genocide and ethnic cleansing; 
(I) Serbia must immediately honor its 
international legal obligations towards Bosnia 
and Herzegovina, stemming from the Conven-
tion on the Prevention and the Punishment of 
the Crime of Genocide and the ICJ judgment, 
by immediately apprehending and transferring 
to the ICTY all individuals indicted for partici-
pating in the commission of the crime of geno-
cide, particularly Radovan Karadzic and Ratko 
Mladic; and 
(J) it is in the national interest of the 
United States that all individuals who are re-
sponsible for war crimes, genocide, and crimes 
against humanity in Bosnia and Herzegovina 
should be held accountable for their actions, 
and the Republika Srpska entity, Serbia, and 
Montenegro must therefore fully cooperate with 
the ICTY; 
(2) the United States reaffirms its strongest 
support for the independence, sovereignty, and terri-
torial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and sup-
ports the transformation of Bosnia and Herzegovina 
into a state with governmental institutions commen-
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