Bosnia and Herzegovina: Motorway-affected residents submit complaint to the UN, 24 June 2024

A group of people whose land and houses are threatened by the EU-funded planned Corridor Vc (1) motorway south of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina have submitted a complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Council (2).

The complaint alleges violations of their rights to property and public participation in environmental decision-making. Some of the group are resisting expropriation procedures, while others will receive no compensation at all, despite having houses within metres of the motorway that will become uninhabitable and unsellable.

...The complaint details how the decision to route the motorway through villages, agricultural and tourist areas in the Neretva valley was taken without public consultations, breaching local legislation and depriving affected people of the chance to have a say.

Given the existence of an alternative route on the surrounding hills, whose rejection has never been convincingly explained, the group believe it is unjustified for the motorway to harm their properties.

Their view has been vindicated by the accountability mechanism of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which is financing this motorway section (3)

In early 2024, the accountability mechanism confirmed that the route selection process had breached the Bank’s policies and recommended analysing alternative alignments, together with a new environmental and social assessment (4). However, the EBRD has dragged its feet in remedying the breach of its standards and the project is currently in a deadlock.