9. The effective protection of human rights requires a strong and vigilant civil society, and efforts to contribute to its strengthening must be sustained, including the adoption of a legal framework which respects the independence of non-governmental organizations.

10. The Council:

• supports the development and implementation of a sound legal framework for civil society organizations, including the adoption of a draft Law on Associations and Foundations;
• supports development of the capacity of local human rights NGOs to ensure sustainability of human rights activities now undertaken by international organizations and the effective operation of local human rights NGOs, unimpeded by threats or intimidation by authorities.

11. Missing Persons and Exhumations: The Council welcomes the improved co- operation between the Entities in joint exhumations and the role played by the High Representative in co-ordinating this process, and strongly urges that this should continue. It also pays tributes to the efforts of NGOs involved, especially Physicians for Human Rights, the International Commission for Missing Persons, and of the ICRC.

The BiH authorities undertake to strengthen their commitment to addressing the issue of missing persons and detainees unaccounted for and to ensure adequate resources for self-sustaining structures for tracing missing persons and carrying out exhumations.

The authorities in both Entities as well as the joint institutions will lend their full support to the tracing process of the Working roup on Missing Persons chaired by the ICRC. The authorities will ensure that the representatives of the Parties in the Working Group receive full support from the Ministries of Justice, Interior and  Defense as well as the Armed Forces in their efforts to ascertain the fate of the  missing, including the granting of full access to all available sources of information  and witnesses.

The Council:

• urges a stronger focus on the development of longer-term structures, to include better services to the families of the missing, more effective tracing mechanisms and inter-Entity forensic co-operation;
• calls for the establishment of mortuary facilities in BiH capable of accommodating bodies exhumed, and urges resources be made available for this purpose;
• calls for the training of BiH medical personnel in forensic medicine, to give BiH the capability to continue this work independently in the longer term.

12. Passports: According to Conclusions of the Bonn PlC and the Luxembourg meeting of the PlC Steering Board, all citizens of BiH should be in the possession of new travel documents according to the BiH Law on Travel Documents by 31 December 1998. The Council notes with dissatisfaction the slow and bureaucratic implementation of the law, in particular in the Federation and BiH Embassies abroad.

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