A state whose constitution is a peace treaty

Sarajevo is the capital of a state whose basic law is not an ordinary basic law. The constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina is an annex to a peace agreement. The state was built, after that text, to end a war.

Bosnia and Herzegovina lies in south-eastern Europe between Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia. At Neum it reaches the Adriatic, a narrow outlet between Croatian territory. The area is 51,209 square kilometres, the population 3,140,095. The capital is Sarajevo. The political form is two entities, a district, and common institutions meant to cover the whole territory.

An annex to a peace, not a textbook

In 1995 the General Framework Agreement for Peace was initialled and signed in Paris. Its fourth annex is the constitution. It does not open with a founding myth. It opens with the peoples the agreement names as constituent: Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs, and along with them the Others. That sentence is the political geology of the state. It says who appears as a people in the constitutional order, and it does not drop the Others, even when institutions often behave as if the country were exhausted by the three names.

A constitution that is a peace treaty carries other burdens than a text an assembly writes in a quiet time. It has to make a state possible and, at the same time, register the fear of the sides that fought the war. Toward the inside it is an arrangement in which the consent of the parts becomes the condition of the centre. Sarajevo is the name of that centre. It is not proof that the parts have vanished.

Two entities and the Brčko District

The constitution says the state consists of two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. The line between them is not an international border. People, goods and capital are to move freely through the whole country, and neither entity is to set up controls on that line. Even so, the line is the most important internal border on the political map. The Federation is itself further divided. Republika Srpska has its seat in Banja Luka, not in Sarajevo.

In the north-east lies Brčko, and there the simple division in two does not hold. The Brčko District is not a third entity. It is a self-governing unit under the sovereignty of the state as a whole. It lies where a corridor would otherwise have belonged to one side alone. Without Brčko the map of the entities would be different, and access in the north would have been a prize of the boundary drawing. With Brčko the state has a piece of territory that does not answer to the entities.

The line between the entities is not a state border. It is the seam inside a state.

— TerraTally · Countries desk

What still holds for the whole country

The state as a whole has institutions that do not belong to one entity. The presidency has three members: one Bosniac and one Croat from the Federation, one Serb from Republika Srpska. The central bank is the only authority that issues money and makes monetary policy for the entire country. The currency is called the convertible mark. It is legal tender in both entities and in the district. A person paying in Banja Luka and a person paying in Sarajevo pay the same coin.

Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are the languages of public life. In daily speech, speakers understand one another across the entity line. In law they remain three languages, and Serbian is also written in Cyrillic. That closeness is not an argument for treating the distinction as invented. It is the reason a state with three official languages can be administered at all. Sarajevo holds the common institutions. Banja Luka holds an entity. Neum holds the narrow way to the sea. Between them lies a country that has one passport only as a whole, and quiet politics only in parts.

On the map Bosnia and Herzegovina is a small country with a capital, a gap of Adriatic coast and a currency. In the constitution it is the country that translated a peace into institutions. The entities are not the end of the state. They are the condition under which it stands at all.