Challenges for International Peace and Security During Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Presidency of the UN Security Council

Abstract

On October 15, 2009, Bosnia and Herzegovina was elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the 2010–2011 term, which represented a significant opportunity for its foreign policy positioning. A particularly important moment came in January 2011, when Bosnia and Herzegovina held the presidency of the Security Council, that is, when it coordinated the work of the United Nations’ most important body. The aim of this paper is to determine how Bosnia and Herzegovina acted and what positions it took regarding the challenges to international peace and security during its presidency. During Bosnia and Herzegovina’s presidency, the Security Council held 8 consultations in full composition and 10 formal meetings, adopted one resolution, two presidential statements, and issued
seven press statements. The greatest threats to international peace and security in January 2011 were in Côte d’Ivoire, Sudan, Somalia, Nepal, Haiti, and the Middle East, including the Palestinian question. At the initiative of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a thematic debate was also organized on “Post-conflict peacebuilding: institution-building.” Various methods were used in the research: historical-legal, normative-dogmatic, comparative method, content analysis, case study method, inductive and deductive method, as well as synthesis. In addition to analyzing the existing literature in this field, special attention was also devoted to the analysis of numerous UN documents from this period. The results of the research show that Bosnia and Herzegovina played a constructive role and adopted an affirmative stance in addressing the challenges to international peace and security during its presidency of the UN Security Council.