Republika Srpska’s leader Milorad Dodik has come up with a crafty way of dealing with the fact that the ethnic-territorial definition of the three-person BH Presidency has been proclaimed to be an abuse of human rights by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

He proposes a simple change. Instead of electing "a Serb" from the territory of Republika Srpska, people there will elect "one person".

He says this because he can see that far into the future, that person will be a Serb.

But in the Federation (the other Entity making up Bosnia and Herzegovina), things are much trickier.

Why? If the constitution provides only for "two people" to be elected from the territory of that Entity and ethnic categories are abandoned, what is to stop two Bosniacs and no Croat being elected?

Once again, Dodik takes wily rhetorical and political advantage of the fact that under the Dayton deal Republika Srpska is a more manageable space; it is predominantly Serb, and so has to spend far less time fighting with itself over ethnic quotas and ‘balance’.

The fact is that without an ethnic quota of some sort it is hard to see how any Croat can get elected to the BH Presidency, collective or otherwise – Croat numbers in Bosnia are absolutely too small.

But ethnic quotas in favour of Bosniacs, Serbs and Croats (as per the Dayton deal) clearly discriminate against Bosnians, Jews and any other category.

It is genuinely tricky to find a new formula which is fair in itself, does not discriminate against some individuals or categories of people, and which is likely to be acceptable to Strasbourg.

Oh, and is likely to get accepted by the three rival leaderships in Bosnia itself.

Ideas, anyone?

How about this?

BH Presidency member are no longer directly elected but instead are nominated by the two Entity assemblies or even by the BH-level Parliament, on the basis of unanimity. 

This means that the three main communities’ MPs themselves have to strike a deal to get the Presidency elected, thereby (in effect) guaranteeing a reasonable ethnic balance at the top. And if the MPs want to choose Presidency members who are ‘Bosnian’ or Jewish or anything else to make that compromise happen, that’s fine too.

Nothing ruled in. Nothing ruled out.

Sorted?