European Human Rights and Constitution-building in a Post-conflict Society: the Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

The constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina (henceforth ‘BiH’) was born out of conflict. The country, like much of the Balkan region, had been subject to waves of invasion, nationalist tension and foreign domination for many centuries. The Ottoman Empire, with a complex system of public and private law influenced by Islamic law, had been followed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, overlaying the legal system with the tradition of the Code Civil. Before the Ottoman period the Slav population had divided between adherents to the Church of Rome and followers of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Under the Ottomans a group of Slavs had converted to Islam, further fracturing the religious coherence of the region. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the pan-Slavist movement had sought to establish a Serb national homeland for its people. When Princip assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo in 1914, the aim was to establish a Serb state free of imperial domination.