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In the exercise of the powers vested in me by Article V of Annex 10
(Agreement on Civilian Implementation of the Peace Settlement) to the
General Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to which
the High Representative is the final authority in theatre regarding
interpretation of the said Agreement on the Civilian Implementation of the
Peace Settlement; and considering in particular Art. II.1.(d) of the last
said Agreement, according to the terms of which the High Representative
shall "Facilitate, as the High Representative judges necessary, the
resolution of any difficulties arising in connection with civilian
implementation";
Recalling paragraph XI.2 of the Conclusions of the Peace Implementation
Conference held in Bonn on 9 and 10 December 1997, in which the Peace
Implementation Council welcomed the High Representative's intention to use
his final authority in theatre, regarding interpretation of the Agreement on
the Civilian Implementation of the Peace Settlement, in order to facilitate
the resolution of any difficulties as aforesaid "by making binding
decisions, as he judges necessary" on certain issues including (under
sub-paragraph (c) thereof) "measures to ensure the implementation of the
Peace Agreement throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina and its Entities";
Considering the seriousness of the problems faced by Bosnia and Herzegovina
arising out of the absence of legislation in the field of standardisation,
and in particular the difficulties facing producers wishing to export their
products to markets within the European Union;
Noting that the European Union "Road Map" for Bosnia and Herzegovina
recommends the establishment of a single Bosnia and Herzegovina Institute
for Standards;
Noting further that in the Annex to the Declaration of the Peace
Implementation Council which met in Brussels on 23 and 24 May 2000 it was
stated that the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina should act promptly as
to the adoption of a Law on Standardisation, including the creation of a
Bosnia and Herzegovina Institute for Standards;
All this considered, borne in mind and noted, I hereby issue the following
decision which shall enter into force with immediate effect on an interim
basis, until such time as the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and
Herzegovina adopts this Law in due form, without amendments and with no
conditions attached.
Pursuant to, and as an integral part of this my Decision herein, I require
the appropriate authorities of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and
of the Republika Srpska to take all necessary steps to ensure that the laws
and regulations of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and of the
Republika Srpska respectively are and remain fully harmonised with the Law
on Standardisation of Bosnia and Herzegovina hereinafter set out. In the
event that changes are required to be made to the laws and/or regulations of
the Entities in consequence thereof, such changes are to be effected no
later than six months after the entry into force of the said Law on
Standardisation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
DECISION
ON THE LAW ON STANDARDISATION OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
I GENERAL PROVISIONS
Article 1
1. This Law establishes the aims and principles of national
standardisation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter referred to as BiH
national standardisation), and regulates the preparation, adoption,
publication and use of national standards of Bosnia and Herzegovina
(hereinafter referred to as BiH national standards).
Article 2
1. The terms used in this Law or, the terms most frequently used in
connection with standardisation, have, in accordance with the European
standard EN 45020, the following meanings:
a) standardisation
the activity of establishing provisions, with regard to
actual or potential problems, for common and repeated use, aimed at the
achievement of the optimum degree of regulation in a given field;
b) international standardisation
standardisation in which involvement is open to relevant
bodies from all countries;
c) European standardisation
standardisation in which relevant bodies from European
countries are involved;
d) national standardisation
standardisation at the level of one specific country;
e) standards body
standardising body, recognised at national, European or
international level, whose principal function is the preparation and
adoption of standards that are made available to the public;
f) national standards body
standardising body recognised at national level as eligible
to be the national member of the corresponding international and European
standards organisations;
g) national standards body of Bosnia and Herzegovina
standardising body recognised in Bosnia and Herzegovina as
eligible to be the national member of the corresponding international and
European standards organisations;
h) international standardising organisation
standardising organisation whose membership is open to
relevant national bodies from any country:
1. ISO - International Organisation for
Standardisation,
2. IEC - International Electrotechnical Commission,
3. ITU - International Telecommunication Union;
i) European standardising organisation
standardising organisation whose membership is open to
relevant national bodies from European countries:
1. CEN - European Committee for Standardisation
2. CENELEC - European Committee for Electrotechnical
Standardisation
3. ETSI - European Telecommunication Standards
Institute;
j) consensus
general agreement, characterised by the absence of sustained
opposition to substantial issues of the discussion by any party concerned,
achieved through a process that involves seeking to take into account the
views of all parties to the discussion and to reconcile any conflicting
arguments;
Consensus need not imply unanimity.
k) standard
document, established by consensus and approved by a
recognised body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules,
guidelines, or characteristics for activities and their results, aimed at
the achievement of the optimum degree of regulation in a given field;
l) international standard
standard available to the public and adopted by an
international standardising organisation;
m) European standard
standard available to the public and adopted by a European
standardising organisation;
n)national standard
standard available to the public and adopted by a national
standards body;
o) national standard of Bosnia and Herzegovina
standard that is adopted by a national standards body of
Bosnia and Herzegovina and made available to the public.
p) province standard
standard available to the public and adopted at the level of
a part of the country.
II - NATIONAL STANDARDISATION OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Article 3
1. The aims of BiH national standardisation are:
a) enhancement of international trade with prevention and
elimination of the barriers resulting from unfounded differences existing
when conducting business at national level;
b) increasing the levels of safety, of health and life
protection and of environmental safety;
c) promotion of a purposeful exploitation of work, material and
energy in production processes;
d) improvement of production efficiency along with management
of variety, conformity and interchangeability;
e) promotion of quality of products, processes and services,
with establishing of their characteristics enabling them to fulfil defined
requirements, or to serve a defined purpose;
Article 4
1. The principles on which the BiH national standardisation is based
are:
a) voluntary involvement and contribution of all parties
concerned in preparation and adoption of BiH national standards;
b) voluntary application and use of BiH national standards;
c) consensus, which means a general agreement of a significant
portion of parties concerned with the contents of the BiH national standard;
d) priority of common interests of parties concerned over the
individual interests;
e) transparency of preparatory work and availability of BiH
national standards to the public;
f) inter-conformity of BiH national standards;
g) complying with the state of art achieved and with the rules
of international and European standardisation.
III - STANDARDISING BODIES IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Article 5
1. Programming and performing of standardisation tasks in BiH are done
by:
a) The Institute for Standardisation, Metrology and
Intellectual Property (hereinafter referred to as the Institute), with the
support of the Institutions for Standardisation of the Entities in
accordance with Article 10 of this Law,
b) The Council for Standardisation (hereinafter referred to as
the Council)
Article 6
1. The Institute performs the following duties and tasks in the field
of national standardisation:
a) prepares, adopts, publishes and maintains BiH national
standards and other documents from the field of BiH national
standardisation;
b) keeps the register of BiH national standards;
c) forms permanent and temporary expert technical bodies,
coordination committees and standing working groups in charge of performing
work programs in the matters from standardisation field;
d) participates in the work of international and European
standardising organisations and represents the interests of BiH national
standardisation therein;
e) collects, arranges and distributes standards and other
documents and information from the standardisation field, in accordance with
the work program, and establishes, keeps and maintains relevant databases;
f) pronounces the use of BiH national standards on the proposal
of the relevant technical committee;
g) publishes the Journal intended for publishing of the adopted
BiH national standards and information on other documents from
standardisation field;
h) performs other tasks in accordance with the regulations and
international obligations of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the field of
standardisation;
i) performs expert - administrative tasks for the needs of the
Council.
Article 7
1. The Council performs the following duties and tasks:
a) establishes long term and annual work plans for
standardisation;
b) monitors the realisation of the annual work plan and other
program acts relating to the preparation and adoption of the BiH national
standards;
c) adopts the general act on the procedure of preparation,
adoption and publication of BiH national standards;
d) proposes the establishing of permanent and temporary expert
technical bodies in charge of carrying out work programs in matters from the
standardisation field;
e) presents proposals and suggestions with regard to membership
of international and European organisations to the Council of Ministers of
BiH and to the Institute;
f) the Council elects the Chairman and adopts the Book of
Ordinance on its operation;
g) performs other tasks in the standardisation field, in
accordance with this Law, the instructions by the Council of Ministers and
its own Book of Ordinance.
Article 8
1. The Council consists of a total of twenty-five members.
2. The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, upon the
proposal of the Director of the Institute, appoints Council members amongst
prominent experts for a term of four years. The Director of the Institute
and his deputy for standardisation are members of the Council by virtue of
their position.
3. The Council performs a part of duties and tasks through three
Commissions, namely:
a) Commission for the general field, consisting of thirteen
members;
b) Commission for electro-technique, consisting of seven
members;
c) Commission for telecommunications, consisting of five
members;
Article 9
1. The Law on establishing the Institute determines the sources of
funding for the financing of standardisation work.
2. The work of the Council and its Commissions is financed through the
Institute.
Article 10
1. The Entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, namely the Federation and
the Republic of Srpska, (hereinafter referred to as the Entities) may, in
accordance with their needs, organise the work in certain fields of
standardisation.
2. The Institutions for Standardisation of the Entities may perform the
following tasks:
a) facilitating the transmission of information on standards
and processes of their adoption to the final users;
b) taking over the sponsorship of the work of the Technical
Committees of the Institute that are of special interest for the Entity;
c) adopting, distributing and selling of the province standards
for which interest exists only on the side of subjects of the Entity
adopting such standard;
d) offering help to companies in creation of internal
standards;
e) organisation of translation of standards into the language
of special interest for the Entity, and forwarding these translations into
the procedure of preparation and adoption of national standards;
f) selling standards in the language of the special interest of
the Entity in accordance with the applicable agreement with the Institute,
g) participating in proposing the members of Technical
Committees from the Entities,
h) engaging in publishing activities in the field of
standardisation,
i) performing the supervision in the Entity over the
implementation of the State and Entity Law on Standardisation,
j) carrying out the education of interested parties from the
field of standardisation,
k) Performing other tasks from the standardisation field which
have not been mentioned in this Law.
3. The Entities shall establish a suitable infrastructure for the
realisation of the tasks mentioned in paragraph 2., and shall define its
functioning by a separate Law.
IV PREPARATION, ADOPTION AND PUBLICATION OF BIH NATIONAL STANDARDS
Article 11
1. The Institute adopts national standards for Bosnia and Herzegovina
in accordance with a special procedure established by the Council.
2. BiH national standard is designated with BAS abbreviation,
(hereinafter referred to as BAS standard).
3. BAS standard is printed in Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages
and published in the Journal of the Institute.
4. BAS standard may also be prepared on the basis of, or by accepting
fully an international or European standard or other document from the
standardisation field. BAS standards prepared in this way may be published
in languages as referred to in paragraph 3, or in a foreign language.
5. When Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have a special interest in a
specific standard, whose adoption is proposed by one of the Entities, this
Entity may initiate the procedure of adoption of such standard in the form
of the province standard.
Article 12
1. BAS standard is published as a separate publication and is
considered to be an authors' work in accordance with the Copyright Law.
2. Copying or distribution of the standard or its parts without the
consent of the Institute is prohibited.
V THE USE OF BAS STANDARDS
Article 13
1. The use of BAS standard is voluntary, except when compulsory
application is prescribed by a separate regulation.
2. Regulation prescribing the compulsory use of a standard must contain
reference to BAS standard.
Article 14
1. The conformity of products, processes and services with BAS
standards can be acknowledged by a statement, a certificate or a mark of
conformity.
2. The person, who gives the statement of conformity with BAS standard,
does so on his own responsibility.
VI TRANSITIONAL AND FINAL PROVISIONS
Article 15
1. JUS standards, that are in use in Bosnia and Herzegovina on the
basis of the Statutory decree on taking over of the Laws and By-Laws of
former SFRY ("The Official Gazette of RBiH", No. 2/92, 13/93 and 13/94), and
have not been replaced with BAS standards, can be used in Bosnia and
Herzegovina until their replacement, and until 31 December 2003 at the
latest, unless JUS standards with compulsory use have not been replaced with
applicable regulations.
Article 16
1. BAS standards, including transposed international and European
standards, which were published before the entry into force of this Law
shall remain in force.
2. The Council shall verify the list of previously published BAS
standards.
3. The Council shall define priorities for the translation of BAS
standards into the official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina and shall
publish standards so translated within 12 months.
Article 17
1. The Council referred to in Article 5 of this Law shall be
constituted within three months from the date of entry into force of this
Law.
Article 18
1. Expert working bodies, coordination committees, technical committees
and standing working groups for preparation of standards existing on the
date of entry into force of this Law, shall carry on with their work, with
their current membership status and in accordance with current rules, until
harmonisation of their work with provisions of this Law, and within six
months from the date of entry into force of this Law at the latest.
Article 19
1. Provisions related to standardisation from the Law on
Standardisation ("The Official Gazette of RBiH" No. 13/93, 13/94 and 9/95)
are hereby repealed with effect from the date of entry into force of this
Law.
Article 20
1. This Law shall be published without delay in the Official Gazette of
Bosnia and Herzegovina and shall enter into force on the eighth day
following the date of such publication.
2. This Law shall likewise be published without delay in the Official
Gazettes of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and of the Republika
Srpska.
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Sarajevo, 12 November 2000 | Wolfgang Petritsch | | | High Representative |
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