The Brcko Arbitration: A Blueprint for Ending Current and Future Ethnic Territorial Conflicts.

Within the fields of conflict resolution, political science, and history, I am researching the effectiveness of mediating an end to current and future ethnic, territorial conflicts through international law—specifically an international arbitration process. I am using the Brcko Arbitration, completed as part of the Dayton Peace Accords, as a case study of the effectiveness of international arbitration in peace building. After three years of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992–1995, Brcko was a multiethnic and multireligious city and was a cultural dividing line between the two ethnically autonomous regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its options were to join either the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had a primarily Bosnian-Muslim and Croatian-Catholic population, or the Republika Srpska, the Christian Orthodox Serbian area of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This paper will analyze the international arbitral process at Brcko and evaluate the three main factors that make this arbitration worthy of continued use in ongoing and future ethnic, territorial conflicts globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]