Uspostavljanje BiH-federalizma: agregacija ili devolucija?
Establishment of BiH-Federalism: Aggregation or Deregulation

Author(s): Marko Stanković
Subject(s): History of Law, Constitutional Law, International Law, Public Law, Government/Political systems, Politics and law, Inter-Ethnic Relations
Published by: Fondacija Centar za javno pravo
Keywords: Bosnia and Herzegovina; federalism; constitution; international treaty; unitary state; multinational community;
Summary/Abstract: Federalism applied in Bosnia and Herzegovina is very original, starting with the constitution adopted in the form of an international treaty, all the way to a constitutional court composed of foreign nationals. This unique arrangement, which is a combination of the elements of two forms of federalism - the confederation and the federation, has been functioning for almost a quarter of a century. The first subject of analysis in this paper is the legal nature of constitutional arrangement in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thereafter, attention is directed to the way it has originated and an attempt to answer the question of whether it arose by unification of independent entities (association) or by changing the internal structure of an earlier unitary state (devolution). After considering older, dichotomous theories about the emergence of federal systems, more recent, trichotomous theories are also considered. At the very end, there are some reflections on the future of federalism in multinational communities in general and especially Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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