Temporary Authority, Democratic Control, and the Conditions for Self-Government
Imagine that a political community has emerged from a violent conflict.
Elections are being held. Schools and hospitals have reopened. Public institutions are functioning again.
But an outside authority still possesses extraordinary powers.
It may impose decisions when elected institutions fail to agree. It may even remove public officials.
Those powers were introduced to help preserve peace.
Years pass. Then decades.
Who decides when they are no longer necessary?
Should the outside authority make that judgment? Should the elected government decide? And what if some residents fear that ending supervision would put their rights at risk?
In the previous essays, I examined how established rights, public security, financial obligations, and dispute-resolution procedures might survive political change.
One question remains.
Who has the authority to decide that the transition is over?
Temporary institutions may be necessary. But protecting residents does not automatically justify indefinite control.
Nor does announcing the end of outside supervision prove that domestic institutions are ready.
Both dangers matter.
Bosnia and Herzegovina — Peace Under International Supervision
The 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement helped end the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It preserved Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state with a complex constitutional structure.
The agreement contained several parts, known as annexes, with different responsibilities.
Annex 4 established the country’s Constitution. Annex 10 concerned the civilian work needed to implement the peace settlement.
Annex 10 provided the framework for the Office of the High Representative, or OHR.
The High Representative was an internationally appointed official, not someone elected by Bosnia and Herzegovina’s residents.
The office was assigned tasks including monitoring civilian implementation, coordinating international activities, and helping the parties resolve difficulties in carrying out the agreement.
Article V made the High Representative the final authority in the country for interpreting Annex 10.
That was a significant but defined responsibility.
It did not give the High Representative unlimited authority to interpret every part of the Constitution. Nor did Annex 10 place international military forces under the High Representative’s command.
Even civilian supervision, however, raised a difficult question.
How far could an outside representative intervene before helping a government function became a form of governing in its place?
From Assistance to Binding Decisions
At a peace implementation conference in Bonn in December 1997, the international Peace Implementation Council supported the High Representative’s use of binding decisions to address difficulties in carrying out the settlement.
These powers became known as the Bonn powers.
They came to be used to impose laws and other decisions, and to remove public officials considered to be obstructing the peace agreement.
There were practical reasons for intervention.
Institutions emerging from war could become deadlocked. Political leaders could prevent measures needed to implement the settlement.
An outside decision might break the deadlock.
Yet it created another problem.
An internationally appointed official could exercise powers ordinarily held by domestic political institutions.
The Bonn conclusions supported this exercise of authority. They did not formally rewrite Annex 10 of the Dayton Agreement.
The legal scope and democratic legitimacy of these powers have therefore remained subjects of debate.
In 2005, the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission, a body that advises on constitutional and democratic matters, examined the High Representative’s powers.
It acknowledged the importance of international involvement while expressing concerns about democratic accountability and the rule of law.
There is no need to deny that intervention may have solved serious problems.
But solving a problem does not answer every question about the power used to solve it.
An authority may help institutions function while reducing the political control residents exercise over those institutions.
How can such powers remain limited, accountable, and directed toward self-government?
Five Objectives and Two Conditions
The OHR continued long after the war.
Supporters of supervision argued that unresolved political and institutional disputes still threatened the peace settlement. Critics maintained that continued intervention weakened domestic responsibility.
In February 2008, the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council established requirements for closing the OHR.
They became known as the 5+2 Agenda.
The five objectives concerned state property, defense property, completion of the Brčko Final Award, fiscal sustainability, and the strengthening of the rule of law.
The Brčko Final Award concerned arrangements for an area whose status had been addressed through arbitration after the war.
Two additional conditions concerned the signing of a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union and a positive assessment by the Steering Board based on compliance with the Dayton Peace Agreement.
These were conditions for closure, not a timetable announcing when the office would close.
They addressed serious institutional concerns.
A government may struggle when ownership of public property remains contested. Defense arrangements and public finances need workable institutions. The rule of law requires public authorities to act within legal limits.
The 5+2 Agenda connected the end of international supervision to progress on those matters.
That was more substantial than setting a departure date and hoping that everything would work.
But another question remained.
Who would decide whether the conditions had been satisfied?
The Steering Board established the requirements and retained a central role in assessing progress.
Domestic authorities were expected to carry out the reforms.
A checklist could make the grounds for closure clearer. It could not, by itself, establish the legitimacy of the institution making the final decision.
Readiness and the Authority to Decide
There are two questions here.
Are domestic institutions capable of exercising the responsibilities that will be transferred to them?
And who has the legitimate authority to decide whether they are capable?
The first concerns institutional capacity. The second concerns political authority.
An outside institution may know a great deal about public finance, courts, and security risks. Its assessment may be valuable.
But expertise does not automatically confer the right to determine a population’s political future.
An elected government has a different claim: democratic representation.
That matters too.
Yet winning an election does not prove that courts will protect residents or that minority rights will remain secure.
A government may demand the withdrawal of supervision because it seeks genuine autonomy. It may also wish to remove limits on its own power.
Neither side is necessarily correct merely because of the position it occupies.
Institutional readiness is not the same as legitimate authority to decide when a transition ends.
In The World Citizen Society, I address institutional capacity through the Transition Gate. A reform should advance when its legal framework, administrative capacity, and necessary coordination are sufficiently developed, and continued restrictions can no longer be justified.
But setting conditions does not settle who evaluates them. The Four-Gap Audit examines related problems of capacity and coordination.
There is also a danger in demanding too much certainty.
Governments change. Courts face pressure. Public finances weaken. Elections bring unexpected results.
Perfect stability cannot be the standard for self-government.
If every remaining risk justifies extraordinary supervision, a transition may never end.
On the other hand, a fixed deadline cannot make failing institutions capable.
A credible decision must distinguish ordinary democratic risks from a genuine inability to protect residents.
That judgment must itself be open to challenge.
A Constitution That Still Excludes Citizens
Bosnia and Herzegovina presents another difficulty.
The constitutional settlement intended to secure peace established rules restricting eligibility for certain political offices according to ethnic affiliation.
Under the Dayton Constitution, the House of Peoples, one chamber of the national legislature, and the three-member state Presidency are organized around representation of Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs—the three constituent peoples.
Citizens outside these categories face exclusion from standing for certain positions in those institutions.
Two such citizens brought their complaints to the European Court of Human Rights.
Dervo Sejdić is of Roma origin. Jakob Finci is Jewish.
In December 2009, the Court’s Grand Chamber decided Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina.
For eligibility to the House of Peoples, the Court found a violation of Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits discrimination, taken together with Article 3 of Protocol No. 1, concerning free elections.
For eligibility to the Presidency, it found a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 12, which provides a broader prohibition of discrimination.
This was the Court’s first judgment finding a violation of Protocol No. 12.
The Court took account of the exceptional circumstances in which the constitutional settlement had been adopted to help restore peace.
But arrangements introduced under those circumstances could not justify the continued exclusion of citizens from political office simply because of their ethnic affiliation.
By 2026, the constitutional and electoral reforms needed to implement the judgment had still not been completed.
This was not a case about foreign nationals demanding citizenship.
Both applicants were citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The problem was unequal eligibility for political office among citizens, tied to ethnic identification.
Resident Equality, as I use the term in the World Citizen Society, is not the legal rule the European Court applied. But the case raises a question that matters for my theory.
If political standing depends on an inherited or assigned group identity, when does an arrangement intended to manage conflict become a lasting form of exclusion?
Can a transition be called complete while the constitutional order still denies equal political eligibility on the basis of ethnic affiliation?
There is no simple answer.
Ending international supervision and ending constitutional discrimination are separate legal and political tasks.
Nor does the High Representative possess a general power to rewrite the Constitution at will.
But the coexistence of prolonged supervision and unresolved political exclusion reveals something important.
A transition may remain incomplete in more than one way.
Whose Rights Are Being Protected?
Outside supervision can mean different things to different residents.
Some may see it as protection against powerful domestic actors.
Others may see it as an obstacle to governing their own political community.
The same person may value both protection and political freedom.
The Sejdić and Finci judgment complicates that choice, as does the broader danger of temporary restrictions becoming permanent inequality.
A constitutional arrangement designed to prevent domination among major groups can itself exclude citizens who do not belong to those groups.
A demand for autonomy cannot justify ignoring those exclusions.
But their persistence does not automatically prove that an outside official should exercise extraordinary governing powers indefinitely.
What matters is whether domestic institutions can protect rights through democratic participation, independent review, and the rule of law.
Ending international supervision and achieving equal political membership are different tasks. Neither should be mistaken for the other.
Who Reviews the Supervisor?
There is a further problem when an outside authority possesses extraordinary powers.
What happens if that authority itself is accused of violating someone’s rights?
The issue arose in Berić and Others v. Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 2004, the High Representative removed several individuals from public and political positions and restricted their future participation in public office.
Those affected brought applications to the European Court of Human Rights.
In October 2007, the Court declared the applications inadmissible.
In other words, it did not proceed to decide whether the complaints were justified.
The Court considered the relevant actions of the High Representative, in principle, attributable to the United Nations rather than Bosnia and Herzegovina for the purposes of those applications.
It did not decide whether the removals violated the applicants’ human rights.
This resembles the problem examined in an earlier essay through international institutions in Kosovo.
An extraordinary authority may make decisions directly affecting individuals, while an ordinary judicial route for challenging those decisions is unavailable.
The point is not that every High Representative decision was unlawful.
It is that strong public power must have an answer to the question of accountability.
Who reviews the supervisor?
The difficulty becomes greater when the institution assessing the need for continued supervision is itself involved in exercising extraordinary powers.
Officials may sincerely believe that further intervention is necessary.
That does not make their judgments immune from scrutiny.
An extraordinary authority should not be the only judge of its own continuing necessity.
But a domestic government seeking immediate withdrawal should not automatically be able to dismantle protections on which other residents depend.
Public reasons, independent examination, domestic participation, and opportunities to challenge continued powers can contribute to a more credible process.
No single safeguard will settle every disagreement.
The important point is that the authority to supervise must itself remain subject to limits and review.
A Different Exit — Eastern Slavonia
A different experience comes from Eastern Slavonia in Croatia.
The United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium, known as UNTAES, operated from January 1996 to January 1998.
It was established to help reintegrate the region peacefully into Croatia under a negotiated arrangement.
Its original mandate lasted twelve months, with provision for extension.
UNTAES completed its principal transitional administration mandate on January 15, 1998, within the agreed two-year framework.
But international involvement did not end entirely that day.
A smaller United Nations police-monitoring group began work the following day.
It continued observing Croatian police activities, including matters connected with the return of displaced people.
This did not prove that every problem of reintegration had been resolved.
It showed something more specific.
Extraordinary territorial administration could end while narrower external monitoring continued.
Some responsibilities returned to domestic institutions. Others remained subject to international observation for a further period.
Not every transitional responsibility has to end on the same date.
But powers that continue need a clear purpose, a process of review, and a way to end.
Temporary powers need a credible path toward becoming unnecessary.
The contrast with Bosnia and Herzegovina should not be pushed too far. Their mandates and political circumstances were different.
It nevertheless shows that ending outside administration need not mean abandoning every form of protection at once.
A Change of Officeholder Is Not Closure
The distinction between an officeholder and an institution became visible in Bosnia and Herzegovina again in 2026.
Christian Schmidt concluded his service as High Representative.
Louis J. Crishock assumed the duties of Acting High Representative on July 1.
The change did not close the OHR.
Its responsibilities and the powers attached to the institution continued.
OHR reporting during 2026 described continuing political tensions and institutional difficulties.
Those were the institution’s assessments. They should not be mistaken for the uncontested views of every domestic political actor or resident.
But the personnel change illustrates a basic point.
Replacing the person who exercises an extraordinary power does not answer whether that power should continue to exist.
The second question requires its own justification.
From Supervision to Political Responsibility
The previous essays examined what must survive political transformation.
Rights must remain protected. Security must be maintained. Financial obligations need functioning institutions. Disputes require lawful means of settlement.
These are questions of institutional capacity.
But transition is also about who governs.
Residents must be able to choose and challenge their rulers, influence public decisions, and defend rights against those who exercise power.
The World Citizen Society cannot treat democratic control as a reward granted only after every possible risk has vanished.
Nor can a demand for democratic control justify removing established protections from people whose rights are already insecure.
The World Citizen Revolution understands rights as something people must continue to win, institutionalize, defend against retreat, and expand.
Courts and administrative bodies matter. So do independent institutions.
They cannot replace the political agency of the people whose rights are at stake.
Completing a transition is therefore neither an administrative certificate issued by an outside supervisor nor a ceremony in which powers are formally handed over.
The institutions must work.
Residents must also have meaningful authority over the political life those institutions govern.
When Is the Transition Over?
Bosnia and Herzegovina illustrates how difficult that question can become.
The Dayton settlement helped end a devastating war.
The High Representative was established to assist civilian peace implementation.
Extraordinary powers developed when ordinary institutions could not resolve important disputes.
In 2008, international authorities established conditions for closing the OHR.
Yet the institution continued into 2026.
Another problem also remained: constitutional restrictions on equal eligibility for important political offices.
The lesson is neither that international supervision should continue forever nor that a fixed deadline would always produce a better result.
Completing a transition involves two different judgments.
Are ordinary institutions capable of governing and protecting residents?
And has the decision to end extraordinary authority been made through a legitimate process?
A political transition cannot be considered complete merely because temporary institutions declare their work finished. Nor can those institutions claim indefinite authority simply because some risks remain.
The end of transition requires more than the departure of outside officials.
It requires institutions residents can govern, challenge, and improve—and political rights through which they can do so as equals.
Temporary authority should help make that possible.
Its success should include the point at which it is no longer needed.
Further Reading
Books
- The World Citizen Revolution — On political transformation and the continuing struggle for political freedom.
- The World Citizen Society — On Transition Architecture, the Transition Gate, No-Permanent-Transition, limited shared powers, and institutional capacity.
Related Essays
- How Can Rights Survive Political Breakup?
- How Can Security Be Maintained During Political Transition?
- Who Pays When Political Communities Change?
- Who Settles Disputes Between Political Communities?
- The Four-Gap Audit: Why Reform Can Fail Even When the Goal Is Right
- Why the World Citizen Society Cannot Be Created Overnight
- No Permanent Transition: When Temporary Restrictions Become Permanent Inequality
References
- OHR. General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1995. https://www.ohr.int/dayton-peace-agreement/
- OHR. Annex 10: Agreement on Civilian Implementation, 1995. https://www.ohr.int/dayton-peace-agreement/annex-10/
- OHR. Mandate of the High Representative. https://www.ohr.int/about-ohr/mandate/
- Peace Implementation Council. PIC Bonn Conclusions, 1997-12-10. https://www.ohr.int/pic-bonn-conclusions/
- PIC Steering Board. Agenda 5+2, 2008-02-26/27. https://www.ohr.int/agenda-52/
- OHR. 69th Report of the High Representative to the UN, 2026-05. https://www.ohr.int/69th-report-of-the-high-representative-for-implementation-of-the-peace-agreement-on-bosnia-and-herzegovina-to-the-secretary-general-of-the-un/
- OHR. PIC Steering Board Statement, 2026-06-30. https://www.ohr.int/statement-of-the-steering-board-of-the-peace-implementation-council/
- OHR. Acting High Representative Louis J. Crishock Assumes Office, 2026-07-01. https://www.ohr.int/acting-high-representative-louis-j-crishock-assumes-office/
- OHR. Statement of the Chair of the PIC Steering Board, Acting High Representative Louis Crishock, 2026-07-14. https://www.ohr.int/statement-of-the-chair-of-the-pic-sba-acting-high-representative-louis-crishock/
- Venice Commission. Opinion on the Constitutional Situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Powers of the High Representative, CDL-AD(2005)004, 2005-03-11. https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/default.aspx?pdffile=CDL-AD%282005%29004-e
- European Court of Human Rights. Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, apps 27996/06 and 34836/06, 2009-12-22. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-96491
- European Court of Human Rights. Berić and Others v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, admissibility decision, 2007-10-16. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-83109
- European Commission. Bosnia and Herzegovina 2025 Report, 2025. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52025SC0751
- United Nations. UNTAES brief chronology, 1996-1998. https://police.un.org/sites/default/files/past/untaes_e.htm
- UN Security Council. Resolution 1145 (1997), 1997-12-19. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/247315
