Internationally Guaranteed Constitutive Order: Cyprus and Bosnia as Predicates for a New Nontraditional Actor in the Society of States

Authors

Thomas D. Grant, Cambridge University

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss two state building projects in comparative perspective--one attempted in Cyprus from 1960 to 1963, and another in Bosnia begun in 1995 and still under way. In cooperation with local parties, segments of the international community undertook in both Cyprus and Bosnia to establish constitutive structures that could accommodate mutually antagonistic ethnic groups in a single state and secure a position for the state in international society. Faced with problems similar in several essential aspects, the framers of the Bosnian constitutive structures of 1995, and their forebears in Cyprus in 1960, formulated similar solutions. This article, while noting where the two state building projects took different forms, emphasizes those points where the Cypriot and Bosnian constitutive orders converge. In dosing, this article notes some possible implications these similarities may have for the ongoing effort to settle the Cypriot conflict, for the fate of the state building project now in its fourth year in Bosnia, and for international society generally.

Recommended Citation

Grant, Thomas D. (1998) "Internationally Guaranteed Constitutive Order: Cyprus and Bosnia as Predicates for a New Nontraditional Actor in the Society of States," Florida State University Journal of Transnational Law & Policy: Vol. 8: Iss. 1, Article 1.
Available at: https://ir.law.fsu.edu/jtlp/vol8/iss1/1