Schwarz-Shilling, the OHR, Kosovo and Republika Srpska
Here is a report from the International Relations and Security Network on the criticism surrounding High Representative and EU Special Representative, Christian Schwarz-Schilling (article).
For those not familiar with the Office of the High Representative (OHR), it is an organ of the international community created in 1995 to oversee the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement (Wikipedia: OHR; Dayton Agreement). In a Peace Implementation Council meeting in Bonn in December 1997, the High Representative was given broad powers to remove public officials from office in BiH and impose laws if the government fails to do so. This is generally referred to as "Bonn Powers." ( More information here).
Schwarz-Schilling was criticized for not making the same muscular use of the "Bonn Powers" that his predecessors have, which lead to the current debate and Schwarz-Schilling announcing that he would not seek to extend his mandate beyond the end of June this year.
I tend to agree with Schwarz-Schilling’s description of the situation: "Had I been systematically using the Bonn Powers, I might have been able to give an impression of progress, but it would have been a false impression. Moreover, there would be no way of establishing the reality of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina or knowing whether or not the country has the capacity to move forward without a High Representative."
Meanwhile, RS Prime Minister Milorad Dodik appears to be increasingly vocal about the issue of RS declaring independence from Bosnia and Herzegovina and according to B92, has threatened to hold a referendum on this issue. This in turn casts a shadow over the international community’s attempts in Kosovo to broker some form of supervised independence from Serbia ( Article). I imagine that this combination of events is what caused Schwarz-Schilling to have the shortest tenure of any of his predecessors.
What would the alternative have been? The most extreme response from Schwarz-Schilling would have been to sack Dodik, which would have been within his mandate. Perhaps he was put under pressure to do this by the Americans and/or Germans. I don’t think that such a course of action would have done anything to reduce tension over the Kosovo question or the RS question. More importantly, I don’t think that it is realistic for the OHR to completely stage manage the governing of Bosnia and Herzegovina until 30 June 2007, then close up shop and leave everyone to their own devices. I believe that Schwarz-Shilling probably should have been more engaging of Dodik, but I don’t have enough information to make a judgement on that.