The procedure for the designation of a property as a national monument is set in motion by a petition or proposal to designate a property as a national monument.  Petitions to designate a property as a national monument are submitted to the Commission pursuant to Article V of Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in BiH.  The Commission has drawn up a standard form of petition for each type of property.  A petition may be submitted by any juristic or natural person in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Pursuant to the provisions of Annex 8, until such time as a final decision is adopted to designate a national monument, but no later than one year from the date of submission of the petition, all parties are required to refrain from any activities that could be detrimental to the proposed property, and all the relevant authorities and institutions in whose territory the said property is located are notified accordingly.

Given the large number of petitions received, the Commission has been unable to honour the deadline stipulated in Article 39 para. 2 of the Commission’s Rules of Procedure which requires a petition to be ruled on no later than one year from the date of submission.  The procedure of considering petitions is made more difficult by the fact that many of the applications are not accompanied by the necessary documentation on the property in question (details of ownership title, location, current condition etc.).  Since the preparation of each individual decision to designate a property as a national monument entails exhaustive research of existing archive, architectural, historical and other material on the property, and since lifting the protection regime for individual monuments could lead to activities detrimental to the monument or even its destruction, at its sessions held in 2011 the Commission adopted Decisions to extend the protection regime stipulated in Article V para. 3 of Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which were submitted for publication in the Official Gazette of BiH. 

The protection regime is extended until the adoption of a final decision by the Commission to Preserve National Monuments to designate the proposed property as a national monument.