A recent Jerusalem Post article (“Illegitimate lawfare: Bosnia uses Israel as a battleground – opinion” April 15, 2025) concerning Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik’s attendance at an antisemitism conference in Jerusalem and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s request for his arrest via Interpol presents a narrative that is both misleading and incomplete.
At the center of this case is not political persecution but a serious legal and constitutional crisis created by Dodik. In February, Bosnia’s State Court convicted him of refusing to implement final and binding decisions of the Constitutional Court and the Office of the High Representative (OHR).
He was sentenced to one year in prison and disqualified from public office for six years. The charges were not related to speech or diplomacy but to repeated, deliberate violations of the rule of law and attempts to place himself and the Bosnian entity of Republika Srpska above the state constitution.
Rather than appealing through legal channels, Dodik escalated matters. He declared that Bosnia “no longer existed” and introduced emergency legislation in RS barring state-level police, courts, and prosecutors from operating on its territory. Draft laws to revive an RS army followed, which directly contradicted the peace settlement agreed at Dayton in 1995.
Faced with this, Bosnian institutions acted. A national arrest warrant was issued. When Dodik left the country and acted in contempt of court, first going to Serbia and then to Israel, the State Court requested a red notice from Interpol. The timing of the request – during the Jerusalem conference – was not a political maneuver but a procedural response to his flight.
Interpol declined, citing Article 3 of its Constitution, which prohibits involvement in political matters. This reflects its policy in other cases, including those involving Catalan leaders. However, the decision neither invalidates the charges nor indicates misuse of the system. It simply highlights the limits of international policing in politically sensitive contexts.
The suggestion that Sarajevo acted to disrupt an antisemitism conference is not only inaccurate; it is offensive. Antisemitism is a growing and serious threat globally. Serious efforts to confront it must be supported, and using such a forum to shield oneself from lawful judicial processes, especially in defiance of the post-genocide constitutional order in Bosnia, is abhorrent.
It is also important to challenge the implicit notion that Bosnia has a record of hostility toward Jews. Sarajevo was once home to one of the most integrated Jewish communities in the Balkans.
During the Holocaust, Bosnia’s Jews suffered primarily at the hands of the Ustaše regime in NDH-era Croatia. This was a fascist puppet state established during the Second World War, not a product of Bosnian institutions. Many local citizens, particularly Muslims, risked their lives to protect their Jewish neighbors.
That legacy continued into the twentieth century. The Sarajevo Haggadah, a fourteenth-century Jewish manuscript of international cultural significance, was rescued twice. First, it was hidden from the Nazis by a Muslim curator. Later, during the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s, it was concealed again, this time from the besieging Bosnian Serb forces.
Incidentally, these are the same forces that Dodik now seeks to revive through legislative acts. The Haggadah remains a powerful symbol of Bosnia’s pluralism and interfaith solidarity, which should be acknowledged, not erased.
Bosnia is attempting to protect its constitutional order
THE ARTICLE also mischaracterizes the High Representative as an unelected “proconsul.” In fact, the OHR was established under the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement. The so-called “Bonn Powers,” adopted by the international community in 1997, allow the High Representative to act when domestic institutions fail or are deliberately obstructed. This authority is grounded in international law and has been repeatedly upheld by Bosnia’s Constitutional Court.
These powers have always been used sparingly. The current High Representative has not imposed foreign values but has acted to protect the legal foundations of the state in response to sustained internal threats, many of which originate from the RS government. His actions reinforce the Dayton framework and do not override it.
Claims that Bosnia is less democratic because of the OHR are misleading. The reality is that the withdrawal of international oversight is tied to specific benchmarks. It is precisely the actions of secessionists and their allies, including the undermining of the judiciary, obstruction of state institutions, and attempts at legislative secession, that have delayed that transition.
Nor is this a case of political overreach. Entity leaders in Bosnia have some latitude in conducting external affairs, but they are not above the law. Dodik is not being pursued for attending a conference. He is facing legal consequences for evading a lawful court order.
Some commentators have tried to present this as part of a wider pattern of nationalist leaders being targeted by courts. However, this is not about ideology; It is about legality.
The criminal code applies equally to all citizens, regardless of political or ethnic identity. Dodik was tried in accordance with domestic law and international standards, and it has been reported that he is now appealing, as is his right under the very system he seeks to undermine.
To call this “lawfare” is to misunderstand or misrepresent what is happening. Bosnia is attempting, through legal means and with considerable restraint, to protect its constitutional order. Conflating law enforcement with political persecution risks emboldening those who openly seek to dismantle democratic governance.
International engagement has, if anything, been restrained, arguably too much so. The High Representative has intervened only when other mechanisms have failed. Sanctions and travel bans imposed by European governments have been proportionate, targeted, grounded in law, and designed to support the rule of law rather than punish dissent.
What Bosnia needs now is not imposition but principled support from her allies, institutions, and observers. To defend Dayton is not to interfere; it is to uphold the very settlement that has preserved peace for nearly three decades.
Since 1995, Bosnia has faced numerous setbacks. Today, the gravest threat comes from within the system itself. Preserving the rule of law through courts rather than political rhetoric is not a provocation. It is the foundation of a democratic state. Bosnia is no exception.
The writer is a former refugee from the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and a defense and foreign policy specialist. She served as chief of staff to former UK foreign secretary William Hague and is a member of the UK House of Lords.