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- You’re interrupting genius - |
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A Free City in the Balkans: Reconstructing a Divided Society in Bosnia
"The
topic is extremely important - and will become more so as various
endgames are reached in the Balkans ... Matthew Parish's analysis is
rigorous, clear-eyed and extremely persuasive ... the book is a
terrific as well as important read." --Eric A. Posner, Kirkland and
Ellis Professor, University of Chicago Law School
"The markedly critical tone of the book ... is unlikely to make
Matthew Parish a resoundingly popular figure with his former employers
and other international organisations active in Bosnia. His damning
critique of the role and the actions of the OHR and the state-building
attempts by the international community can make for uncomfortable
reading. Be that as it may, this is a story that needed to be told, not
least because it is a story of our times – one of
internationally-driven state-building in the contemporary context, and
all of the inherent problems associated with such projects. ... a
timely and valuable addition to the existing literature".
Balkan Insight
"a vivid and at times very
disturbing picture of multiple layers of institutional, cultural and
political misunderstandings at all levels of Bosnian government ...
Perhaps Parish's greatest insight is in noting the huge and
unbridgeable gap that exists between what the international community
and local Bosnian actors understood the war's end - and the Dayton
Peace Accords - to actually mean. ... To see how contradictory visions
of the state conflicted in a local institutional setting is what makes
A Free City in the Balkans particularly useful today as Bosnia is again
plunged into political uncertainty and disarray."
Nationalities Papers
"[Your book] is written with so much of emotion, not to say frustration and bitterness that it becomes more a caricature of reality than a compilation of well considered observations and opinions. ... The result is a book full of twisted truths, half-truths and blatant lies. " -- Robert Bosscher, former Dutch Ambassador to Sarajevo
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This is my first book, published by I.B. Tauris.
The book charts an unusual experiment in state-building in one corner
of post-war Bosnia. An American-led international administration
created a new “free city”, an internationalised territory politically
separate from that of its two neighbours, as a political compromise
between competing claims to sovereignty over the territory. Nothing of
this kind had been attempted since the “Free City of Trieste”, a failed
attempt to share sovereignty in the Adriatic port town between Italy
and Yugoslavia at the end of World War II, and before that the Free
City of Danzig, a German enclave within Poland created by the Peace
Treaty of Versailles.
The “Brčko Distrct” was the latest in a series of such historical
experiments, a city-state carved out from a country ravaged by war to
foreclose an impossible territorial dispute. The District saw
impressive economic and political growth under international tutelage,
and became a model for modern state-building techniques: judicial
reform, privatisation, local democracy and a progressive constitution.
But then, just like every other internationalised territory in history,
it collapsed. This book asks why, and also asks how it managed to be so
successful in the mean time.
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Brčko
District was also the origin of some remarkable legal innovation. It
was created by an international arbitration tribunal. This was a
process for which some thin precedents existed; but what this tribunal
did, run by a friend of Richard Holbrooke, then chief US negotiator at
the Dayton Peace Accords that settled the Bosnian war, was truly
remarkable. It created an international supervisor, an international
official with colonial powers to force reform. The model of the
Supervisor has since been quietly copied across the world, from Kosovo
to Iraq to East Timor, but generally without nearly the same degree of
success. If there has been a defining legal precedent for international
neo-colonialism over conflict-torn countries since the end of World War
II, Brčko has been it. Does legal neo-colonialism work, and how should
it be undertaken? These are some of the questions, the answers to which
this book tries to sketch. |
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Finally,
the book records some fascinating personal stories. A remarkable array
of eccentric international officials, including the author, went to
Brčko to pursue the District project. They achieved some extraordinary
things, and also executed some remarkable blunders, in an unusual
crucible of foreign staff and domestic politicians being forced to work
together and learn one-another’s unusual ways. The entire regime was
unaccountable, even bizarre. Yet its results were remarkable and cannot
be dismissed lightly. Alas, it is a story of which the original records
are for the most part lost to posterity, and there may not be another
opportunity to tell the story in as much detail again. |
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A Free City in the Balkans is available on Amazon in the UK, USA and Germany. The first chapter can be downloaded here. |
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 International and comparative law |
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Film Finance: The Hidden Wager (2002) 118 L.Q.R. 187
Considers whether there is an insurable interest in film finance insurance policies. Published in the Law Quarterly Review, England’s foremost academic legal journal.
Cited in Malcolm A. Clarke, Law of Insurance Contracts, 5 Rev Ed (2006) §4-5M
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State aid and third parties: a logical paradox (2002) 27 E.L. Rev. 628
Addresses
the nature of remedies in EC competition law cases in which government
financial assistance to private sector companies has been held to be
unlawful. Published in the European Law Review, the premier English language journal on EC law.
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On the Private Investor Principle (2003) 28 E.L. Rev. 70
Critique of a central principle of EC competition law as conceptually
incoherent. This piece received quite some acclaim at the time, because
it advocated wholesale revision of an important part of EC law. The
issue – the proper test of when government intervention in the economy
is classifiable as “state aid” – became topical again in 2009, in the
context of government bail-outs and stimulus programmes. A copy of the
article can be downloaded by clicking here.
At the request of Philippe Herzog MEP, I gave expert evidence to the
European Parliament on the subject matter of this article in June 2003
in connection with proposed law reforms. My presentation notes to the
Parliament are available here.
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On Necessity
Journal of World Investment and Trade (Vol.. 11(2), April 2010)
Critique
of the public international law “emergency defences” in the context of
the global economic crisis, as elucidated through ICJ and investment
tribunal case law, and the ILC draft articles on state responsibility.
A copy of the article is available here.
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The Economic Logic of Formality in Property Law
European Law & Economics Association 2009 Annual Conference (September 2009)
Discusses
the economic rationale of the common law rule that passage of title to
personalty is a question of parties’ intention. Compares this principle
unfavourably with a Roman-Germanic doctrine of traditio. A copy of the article is available here.
The Proper Law of an Arbitration Agreement
Arbitration, the Journal of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (November 2010)
Argues that conventional doctrines of
dépeçage in the law of international arbitration are confused. The
“proper law of an arbitration agreement” by which an arbitration
clause’s validity is judged should generally follow the lex fori,
irrespective of the lex causae; but capacity to arbitrate should be
assessed by the lex domicilii, even for public entities.
Awarding Moral Damages to Respondent States in Investment Arbitration
Berkeley Journal of International Law (Fall 2010)
Investigates the incidence of moral damages
claims in investment treaty arbitration. Surveys cases where claimants
have been awarded moral damages, and considers the criteria and
quantum. Also suggests respondent states may be entitled to bring
counterclaims for moral damages where claimants proceed vexatiously in
bringing investment treaty claims.
An Introduction to the Energy Charter Treaty
Am.Rev.Int’l.Arb. 20: 191 (2010)
Provides an overview of the jurisdictional
requirements for US investors to acquire Energy Charter Treaty
protections when investing in the energy sector in Eastern Europe and
the CIS.
The public international law of bank bail-outs
Transnational Dispute Management, Vol. 7(1) April 2010
Discusses the principles of international
investment law applicable to the bank bail-outs that occurred globally
in 2008/2009, and asks whether claims may be raised before investment
tribunals by investors aggrieved by the terms of national bail-out
programmes.
You can link through to the article here (requires a TDM / OGEMID subscription).
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International relations and development  |
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Why are developing world private finance contracts so difficult to get right?
Oil, Gas and Energy Law Intelligence, vol. 5(2) April 2007
Discusses
microeconomic obstacles to successful execution of project finance
contracts for the private operation of infrastructure services in the
developing world, and the high incidence of arbitration and
renegotiation associated with them. Examines information and
cooperation problems, and analyses failures to plan adequately for
dispute resolution scenarios. Click here for access to the online version of the journal; or download the original copy of the article here.
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The Demise of the Dayton Protectorate
Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, December 2007
Discusses
the rise and fall of the international legal regime in post-war Bosnia,
under which a UN official called the “High Representative” ran Bosnia
as an internationally administered governorate for over ten years. This
piece caused some controversy, as the Office of the High Representative
was unhappy with its conclusions, and domestic political parties within
Bosnia and Herzegovina sought to use the opinion for political ends.
The article is available online here.
See also the commentary in the Bosnian press:
OHR should leave as soon as possible, Glas Srpske, 12 June 2008
OHR should urgently close, Nezavisne Novine, 21 July 2008
This piece has been discussed in domestic and international academic circles. See e.g. Sylvie Rammel, Status,
Vol. 13(2008), 10; Heinrich Böll Foundation, Bosnia and Herzegovina and
Controversies of the EU Integration Process (Sarajevo 2008);
Arvanitopoulous and Tzifakis, Eur. View (2008) 7:15.
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International officials
Austrian Review of International and European Law, Vol. 14 (2009)
Discusses
the powers in public international law of officials charged with
UN-mandated and other international territorial administrations in
post-conflict societies. A copy is available for download from SSRN here.
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An essay on the accountability of international organizations
Argues
that legal immunities of international organizations before domestic
courts are undesirable, because they create a lacuna in the
accountability of those organizations which cannot be compensated for
by effective political accountability.
This paper was initially presented as part of a conference panel on
accountability of international organizations, of which the author was
the Chair. International Law Association Conference: Challenges to Transnational Governance (Fordham Law School, NYC October 2009).
Subsequently published in the International Organizations Law Review, Vol. 7(2) (2010). A copy is also available for download from SSRN here.
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 Newspaper articles, interviews and editorials
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The
articles and editorials below for the most part cover topics related to
Bosnia and the Balkans, on which I have been a regular writer and
speaker. I have written a number of opinion pieces about post-war
Bosnia, including political and economic commentaries, and expressions
of views about the role of the international community in promoting the
country’s success and stability.
Republika Srpska: After Independence
Balkan Insight, 19 November 2009
A piece that, at the time, proved rather contrversial. It predicted the de facto or de jure
indepndence of Republika Srpska from the rest of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, contrary to the international community's attempts to hold
the country together since then end of the civil war there in late
1995. With the benefit of hindsight, though, the article has proved to
be more or less accurate. On my last visit to Repbulika Srpska, I
reached the conclusion that de facto indepndence has already to a great extent been achieved. A declaration of de jure indepndence
seems unlikely in the immediate future, but the fate of the Bosnian
Serb half of the country seems destined to plot a course quite
different to that of its Muslim-Croat neighbour.
This article has been published in another of other venues as well,
some my permission, others not. Two other fora in which approved
versions of this article were published are Transconflict (November 2009)
and the Proceedings of the 2010 Geneva Security Forum, where it was
published under the title "Conflict Resolution in Bosnia and
Herzegovina: An Unhealthy Prognosis". Both these versions are
unabridged compared with the Balkan Insight publication. The latter is
fully referenced.
Kosovo Ruling Reveals World Court's Darker Side
Balkan Insight, 28 July 2010
A piece critical of the ICJ's 22 July 2010 ruling on Kosovo's 17
February 2008 Declaration of Independence. The reasoning of the Court
is quite threadbare, and the Judges' voting patterns reveals for the
most part a desire to reinforce the positions of the states from which
each Judge comes. The ruling is a disappointing illustration of the
ICJ's political partiality.
The ruling of the ICJ on which this article comments is available here.
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Interview, Glas Srpske (Bosnian daily newspaper), 16 October 2008
Interview, Glas Srpske, 18 October 2008
Full version of the interview in English here.
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OHR should close, the sooner the better
Oslobodjenje (Bosnian daily newspaper), 25 October 2008
English translation available here.
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Ensuring Bosnia’s Future (conference speaker)
Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC, 15 January 2009
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 Lecture outlines |
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Federalism in Post-war Bosnia: Why it Didn’t Work and Why it harmed Bosnia’s Economy
These lecture notes were prepared in connection with a course taught to students at the University of Graz, February 2008.
The lecture outline can be downloaded here.
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Regionalism and Trade
Conference paper on the political economy of regional trade agreements,
presented at the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico City.
Conference on regionalism and public policy, in association with the
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, May 3-5, 2005. A copy
of the paper can be downloaded here.
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Working papers  |
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Can states be built using commercial law?
December 2007
This
was a piece I wrote, initially as a favour to stimulate a colleague’s
article. I never completed it or submitted it for publication. Perhaps
I should have done so; it is quite an interesting piece.
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The Brčko Sustainability Project
November 2007
Upon
leaving OHR’s employment, I was disheartened by the institutional
backsliding I saw in Brčko, as efforts at state-building waned. I wrote
this piece as an attempt to stimulate a debate about the proper
international community policy towards the city after OHR’s closure. My
thought was that a relatively modest foundation could provide soft
power within the District, and support the politicians there through
creating a continued perception of international attention as they
struck out on their own. At the time of writing, the idea has not come
to much, although I continue to believe that it is a viable method of
managing the transition from heavy international intervention to
domestic political autonomy.
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