OHR Press Releases

The High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, is calling on the RS authorities to investigate the behaviour of the RS police and the RS Interior Ministry towards a TV crew working for Federation Television's talkshow "Dileme". According to Federation TV, their camera crew was turned back by RS police at the Inter Entity Boundary Line while en route to [...]

Principal Deputy High Representative Donald Hays has called on RS legislators and educators to take serious steps to ensure that legislation on higher education in the RS complies with European standards and addresses the chronic shortcomings in the present RS university system.

During a visit to Banja Luka on Tuesday, Principal Deputy High Representative Donald Hays briefed the rectors of Banja Luka University and Srpsko Sarajevo University on the OSCE Permanent Council meeting held last week in Vienna, at which it was decided that the OSCE will take over the role of coordinating the international community’s educat [...]

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 [...]