Milorad Dodik, the president of the Serb-dominated entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina, has signed into law controversial changes approved by the National Assembly of Republika Srpska that effectively allow it to disregard decisions made by the country's international envoy.
The move on July 7 by Dodik, who has led an increasingly inflammatory campaign for years to encourage support for his secessionist hopes, comes six days after Bosnia's international envoy, Christian Schmidt, canceled several controversial rulings that defy a peace deal which ended the country's civil war.
Under the 1995 Dayton accords, Schmidt has the power to impose laws as the final interpreter of the state constitution, though his decisions can be reviewed and questioned by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia, if the Office of the High Representative (OHR) approves.
The accords, which ended the 1992-95 Bosnian War, established an administrative system under which the Bosnian state remains partitioned between Republika Srpska (RS) and the Muslim Bosniak-Croat Federation, connected by a weak central government.
Ethnic Serbs of RS have for years resisted Bosnia's central authorities, with the entity’s assembly voting on June 27 to suspend recognition of any decisions by the Bosnia's multiethnic Constitutional Court.
The change in the law signed by Dodik removes the OHR from the list of authorities whose acts are published by the official gazette, which publishes the decisions passed by the highest authorities, including the high representative.
"The recent decisions taken by the Assembly of Republika Srpska represent a direct violation of the constitutional order of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and also of the Dayton peace agreement," Schmidt told journalists in Sarajevo on July 1.
Serbs in Republika Srpska, the predominantly Serbian entity of Bosnia, say they do not recognize Schmidt, who was appointed in 2021 as the high representative because the UN Security Council did not endorse his appointment. China and Russia disputed his appointment because he was not confirmed by the council, but other nations said it was not required.
The British Embassy has said it backed Schmidt's actions and expressed the joint support of the so-called Quint nations in Bosnia -- the United States, Britain, Germany, France, and Italy.