ABSTRACT
It was during the British EC presidency that UN troops were first committed to Bosnia-Herzegovina on what was from the outset a controversial mandate. Britain took over on 1 July, at a critical juncture in the Bosnian war. Lord Carrington’s peace conference was coming under increasingly sharp criticism, both publicly and within the EC, with Carrington himself likened to a Chamberlain of our time. Also, once the French president had snatched the international initiative, and as the magnitude of what was happening in Bosnia was beginning to seep through to high places,2 it was no longer possible to let things run their course.
