https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War
It was an easy, bold and brutal conquest that shamed the international community. A few hundred Dutch peacekeepers were stationed in Srebrenica, which had gained the status of a UN-protected "safe area". Mladic bet correctly that the international community was too lily-livered to carry out its pledge to protect the enclave.
It is what happened next that earned Srebrenica its grim place in history. Fearful of a commander who had earned a reputation as a vengeful psychopath, the males of Srebrenica fled to the hills and the forests, trying to make it to the safety of Tuzla. Over 10 days, almost 8,000 of them were rounded up and shot in an operation that required extraordinary levels of planning and logistics. It was the worst single crime of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.
Years of forensic work and exhumations followed. Many of the victims are now buried at a special site at Potocari, the camp where the Dutch peacekeepers were based.
The UN's war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia and the international court of justice have both established as a juridical fact that the massacre was an act of genocide, the gravest crime there is – and the hardest to prove.
In a landmark 2004 ruling, Theodor Meron, the American judge who presided over the tribunal in The Hague, said: "By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the 40,000 Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica ...They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity."
Click on the link below :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gmkRe9z20Q
ICTY controversies
In June 2013, Judge Frederik Harhoff of Denmark, a judge at the ICTY, circulated a letter saying that Meron had pressured other judges into acquitting Serb and Croat commanders. The letter claimed Meron had raised the degree of responsibility that senior military leaders should bear for war crimes committed by their subordinates, to the point where it a conviction has become nearly impossible. They blamed Meron, whom they identified as an American, for the acquittals of top Serb and Croat commanders.[21]
In August 2013, a chamber appointed by the ICTY Vice-President found by majority that Judge Harhoff had demonstrated an unacceptable appearance of bias in favour of conviction. Harhoff was therefore disqualified from the case of Vojislav Šešelj. The decision followed a defence motion seeking the disqualification of Harhoff on the basis of Judge Harhoff's letter.
In 2013, the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG) of Rwanda called for the resignation of Meron, who was accused of influencing court decisions by exerting undue influence on judges to let high-profile war crimes suspects go free. The Executive Secretary of the CNLG, Jean de Dieu Mucyo, has stated permitting these decisions could have "disastrous consequences for the current and future cases of international war crimes, for truth and justice in the world, for peace and tolerance, and for human rights and freedoms."[22]
Despite Harhoff's allegations, judges of the Tribunal reelected Judge Meron in 2013 as President by a two to one majority.[23] 2016 he was reappointed as President of the Mechanism.[24]
Judge Meron was on the bench on 29 ICTR appeals involving 39 individuals, presiding over 15 of these cases.[25] Of the 29 appeals, 30 individuals were convicted and 5 individuals were acquitted, acquittals of 3 individuals were affirmed and one re-trial was ordered.[26]
Judge Meron was on the bench on 26 ICTY appeals involving 40 individuals, presiding over 11 of these cases.[27] Of the 26 appeals, 28 individuals were convicted and 4 individuals were acquitted, acquittals of 4 individuals were affirmed and a re-trial was ordered for 3 individuals.[28] In one case, involving an appeal from a Rule 98bis Judgement, the acquittal was overturned and the Trial Chamber was ordered to reinstate the charge.[29]
Meron defended the Tribunal's record on both convictions and acquittals on BBC Hardtalk, TedX, and in an article on Being an International Criminal Judge in the 2016 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[30] Moreover, the controversial acquittal of Croatian General Gotovina gained a unanimous vindication of the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice in Croatia V Serbia genocide judgment of 3 February 2015.[31]
Legal opinion on settlements in the occupied territories
In the late 1960s, Meron was legal counsel to the Israeli Foreign Ministry and wrote a secret 1967 memo[32][33][34] for Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, who was considering creating an Israeli settlement at Kfar Etzion. This was just after Israel's victory in the Six-Day War of June 1967. Meron's memo concluded that creating new settlements in the Occupied Territories would be a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Eshkol created the settlements anyway.[35]
Demolitions and deportations
In a recently discovered opinion, dated March 1968, Meron advised the Israeli Government that the demolition of houses of terror suspects on the West Bank and deporting residents on security grounds violated the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians.[36]
21 Marlise Simons (14 June 2013). "Judge at War Crimes Tribunal Faults Acquittals of Serb and Croat Commanders". The New York Times.
22 Edwin Musoni. Rwanda Wants ICTR Judge Meron to Resign, AllAfrica.com, 19 June 2013.
23 http://www.icty.org/en/press/judge-meron-and-judge-agius-re-elected-president-and-vice-president-icty
24 http://www.unmict.org/en/news/judge-theodor-meron-appointed-new-term-president-mechanism
25 http://unictr.unmict.org/en/cases. The cases were: Bagilishema, Rutaganda, Niyitegeka, G & E Ntakirutimana, Semanza, Kamuhanda, Ntagerura et al, Gacumbitsi, Ndindabahizi, Simba, Nahimana et al, Seromba, Muvunyi, Karera, Zigiranyirazo, Bikindi, Nchamihigo, Rukundo, Kalimanzira, Muvunyi, Renzaho, Bagosora & Nsengiyumva, Ntabakuze, Mugenzi & Mugiraneza, Ndahimana, Ndindiliyimana et al., Bizimungu, Karemera & Ngirumpatse, Nizeyimana.
26 http://unictr.unmict.org/en/cases.
27 http://www.icty.org/en/action/cases/4. The cases were: Kunarac et al., Mucic et al., Vasiljevi}, Krsti}, Dragan Nikoli}, Deronji}, Momir Nikoli}, Staki}, Gali}, Bralov, Brđanin, Blagojevi} & Joki}, Limaj et al., Halilovi}, Hadžihasanović & Kubura, Ori}, Strugar, Krajišnik, Mrksi} and Šljivančanin, Dragomir Milošević, Bo{koski & Tar~ulovski, Haradinaj et al., Gotovina & Marcac, Perisić, Karadžić (Rule 98 bis appeal), Tolimir.
28 http://www.icty.org/en/action/cases/4
29 http://www.icty.org/en/action/cases/4. This was in the Karadžić case.
30 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/n3csrmm8
31 http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=3&k=73&case=118&code=cry.
32 Gorenberg, Gershom (10 March 2006). "Israel's TragedyForetold". New York Times. Retrieved 5 August 2015.
33 Transcript: God's Jewish Warriors, CNN Presents, 21 August 2007.
34 Settlement in the Administered Territories, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; links to 1967 Meron opinion, southjerusalem.com, September 2008; accessed 15 March 2016.
35 Settlement in the Administered Territories, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; links to 1967 Meron opinion, southjerusalem.com, September 2008; accessed 15 March 2016.
36 http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.657167; https://www.reddit.com/r/worldpolitics/comments/36i7fn/israel_knew_all_along_that_settlements_home/http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/06/why-israel-is-blocking-access-to-its-archives/
Click on the link below :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Meron