The Legacy of Dayton

Translated by Alessandra Fumagalli 

Ratko Mladić died 27th August 2026, in Aia, while he was recovering and still detained by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, a United Nations body established to carry out some functions of the international’s trials for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. On 7th September, lots of people took part into his funeral, in Belgrade, together with some members of the Serbian government and military honors. While, the day after, Bosnia and Herzegovina has expelled two Serbian diplomats and suspended the signing of a memorandum of regional cooperation. Mladić’s death hasn’t modified any military balances of the western Balkans, on the contrary, a still unsolved issue emerged: how the legacies of the Yugoslavian wars still influence on the political relations of the area and on the order established after Dayton.

During the war in Bosnia in 1992-1995, Mladić was the head of the General Staff of the Army of Republika Srpska, recognized by 1995 Dayton Agreement as one of the two entities that made up Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with Bosnia and Herzegovina Federation. In 2017, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced him to life imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of laws and costumes of war. The judgment, confirmed in 2021, included the Srebrenica genocide and the terror campaign against the civil population in Sarajevo. Individual criminal liability has therefore been established in the courts, but this has not led to a shared political interpretation of the conflict. Srebrenica’s memory still influences the relations between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the last years in Serbia practices of historical revisionism supported by state actors and public forms of glorification of convicted war criminals have been reevoked. This doesn’t mean giving a uniform position to the Serbian society, rather it means that, when some past interpretations acquire an institutional support, they may go beyond the realm of remembrance and have an impact on relations between regional actors. Mladić’s funeral gives a concrete example: the way it has been celebrated in Belgrade has given an official answer of Sarajevo, turning a dispute over the past into an episode of diplomatic tension in the present.

Dayton agreements did more than bring the war to an end: they established the peace on centred on a system of power-sharing which granted extensive powers to the two entities and sought to shift the conflict from the military to the political and institutional spheres. For thirty years, this arrangement has helped to prevent a return to armed conflict, without, however, erasing the political divisions that emerged from the war, which have continued to be managed through the institutions.

This feature gives to Mladić’s case extremely important for the regional security, since a rift rooted in the past can still have a relevant influence in a system where Sarajevo and Banja Lukaare strictly connected, while Srpska Republic still has special and parallel relations with Serbia, as written in Dayton Agreements. The problem isn’t in the relations, but these relations make the boundary between internal Bosnian dynamics and regional relations more permeable.

The reactions towards Mladić’s death affect a political balance among Sarajevo, Banja Luka and Belgrade, which had already existed before its death. In the last years, some tensions have emerged and they indicate some existing pressures, linked to the relations involving bodies and main institutions: in 2025, for example, the Srpska Republic Assembly adopted some laws, which were pointed as irreconcilable with the Bosnian constitutional order, subsequently struck down by the Constitutional Court. Secessionist rhetoric has also remained a feature of political discourse in the Srpska Republic, but it would be misleading to interpret these elements as evidence of an imminent return to war, as they rather demonstrate how existing political divisions can lead to institutional instability and, through relations with Belgrade, take on a regional dimension. Mladić’s funeral, therefore, fits into an already existing tension, highlighting how much the legacy of the war can still overlap with contemporary political divisions.

The difference between political tension and military escalation is essential to understand the current condition of security. In May 2026, Christian Schmidt, then High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, tasked with overseeing the civilian implementation of the Dayton Agreements, defined the situation “stable but fragile”, underlining how the main disputes were increasing in the political sphere and impacting on the functioning of the institutions. It describes the history of post-Dayton Bosnia: the war hasn’t come back, but the dissatisfaction hasn’t disappeared, they ask for measures able to prevent the escalation. Mladić’s death, has itself generated a diplomatic friction without producing a security crisis, highlights the contradiction between the persistence of fractures and the system's ability to contain them.

This leads to a significant international effort. EUFOR Althea and NATO took part. EUFOR Althea is the European Union’s military mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and NATO which considers the western Balkans a strategical area. This means that the Bosnian stability doesn’t depend only on the inner bodies: 30 years after Dayton, it still relies on an international frame established to act whether political tensions get worse.

The European Union itself, however, acts also on a different plan rather than a military one. After Mladić’s funeral, Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa criticized the support elements and the presence of important Serbian officials, linking it towards Serbia’s path towards the European Union. This is a significant matter, because it shows how the legacy of Yugoslavian wars not only affects Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina relations, but also Belgrade and Bruxelles ones. In this sense, the stabilization role played by EUFOR is complemented by the political level of enlargement, which allows the Union to link the behavior of regional actors to their relationship with European institutions.

To conclude, reactions to Ratko Mladić’s death show how the Yugoslavian legacy still plays a central role in the relations among Serbia, Srpska Republic and Bosna and Herzegovina, causing political and diplomatic tensions 30 years after Dayton. What emerges, however, isn’t a return to a conflict, as these tensions are only political, but granted by international bodies. Regional stability, therefore, does not mean the disappearance of the divisions left by the Yugoslavian wars, but rather the ability to contain them and prevent their escalation. Mladić’s case plays a relevant role: it does not represent a new threat, rather it underlines the ongoing fragilities in the post-Dayton era.

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