NATO Should Replace OHR as Guarantor of Bosnia’s Stability

Bosnians, at home and among the diaspora communities in the US, Europe, and Australia, are in fact affecting change outside the political process by investing in the country's grassroots economic, cultural, civil society, and educational development. These commendable efforts will take time to develop and mature. But they cannot ultimately succeed without corresponding progress in politics and governance throughout the country.

This is where the Euro-Atlantic community can and must play a leadership role in new, innovative ways. One potential path forward, now that the path to European Union integration has been effectively closed, is the institutional replacement of the OHR with NATO.

The OHR's original role in implementing the Dayton peace has been defunct for all intents and purposes since 2007. The 5 + 2 agenda, which outlined the conditions for the OHR's closure, has no prospect of being fulfilled any time soon, and the OHR can play no substantive or meaningful role in facilitating that agenda. Apart from its current limited role as legal guardian of Dayton and as the institutional basis for international intervention should circumstances warrant, the OHR is now arguably contributing nothing of substance to Bosnia's political evolution.

Signing the Dayton Agreement, 1995- Photo: Wikipedia/NATO

That said, simply closing the OHR in the absence any compensatory institutional replacement would be a catastrophic strategic mistake which would likely leading to Bosnia's dissolution driven by malign actors opposed to its survival as a unified and functional state in the Western Balkans.

For this reason, the closure of the OHR can only occur in tandem with its replacement by a stable institution capable of providing genuine stability...