World View: Dayton Accord offers a possible route out of Syrian disaster

US brokered deal was imperfect and based on exhaustion and impasse rather than justice. But it stabilised the region

The leaders of Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia sign  the peace agreement on Bosnia in  December 1995 whilst world leaders look on. Photo: Getty.

The leaders of Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia sign the peace agreement on Bosnia in December 1995 whilst world leaders look on. Photo: Getty.

Could Russia’s military intervention in Syria be the prelude to – or even enable – a regional peace deal similar to the 1995 Dayton Agreement, which brought an end to fighting in the former Yugoslavia?

That Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian civil war killed 100,000 people and was stoked by regional and global powers. Dayton was an imperfect peace deal, based on exhaustion and impasse rather than justice. But its terms stabilised the region and inserted human rights norms, transitional political arrangements, refugee resettlement and mediation instead of war.

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