OHR Press Releases

The High Representative at the end of last week delivered to the Council of Ministers a draft of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In June the High Representative promised the Council of Ministers that they would receive the draft before the end of the first week of July. This is a central part of reforms necessary to strengthen the crim [...]

The Deputy High Representative and Head of the OHR Banja Luka office, Mr. Paul Martin, is leaving his post on 5 July and will hand over to Ambassador John Bennett, who is presently serving in OHR Sarajevo and will fill the post temporarily.

OHR, OSCE, UNHCR, CRPC and UNMIBH released today the PLIP statistics for May of this year and announced that the overall implementation rate of the Property Laws in BiH has reached 52%; this is an achievement but much more needs to be done to ensure that all property claims are solved.

Current levels of economic growth are too small to make significant inroads on poverty, and existing legislation hinders the ability of companies to create new jobs - the principal means by which tens of thousands of BiH citizens will break out of the poverty trap, the High Representative told an anti-poverty seminar held in Sarajevo on Monday.

The High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, spoke to US Secretary of State Colin Powell this afternoon for ten minutes. The High Representative expressed his concern at the possibility that the mandate of the United Nations Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) would not be extended on 3 July. The High Representative said this would lead to UNMIB [...]

Principal Deputy High Representative Donald Hays has sent a letter to Chairman of the BiH Council of Ministers Dragan Mikerevic and Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations Azra Hadziahmetovic, drawing their attention to the recent failure of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly to consider the Law on Changes and Amendments to the Law on Civil Av [...]

The High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, today issued two Decisions amending the BiH Law on Identity Cards of Citizens of BiH and the BiH Law on Central Registers and Data Exchange. The amendments clarify the contents of the new BiH identity card. In particular, the amendments remove the Entity reference, in response to recommendations made in a rec [...]

The OHR has called on BiH government leaders to end delays in passing crucial economic legislation. The High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, in his inaugural address to the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, defined his priorities as “first justice, then jobs, through reform.” He went on to say that in modern economies, governments are responsi [...]