The United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague president, an American, pressured other judges into approving the recent acquittals of top Serb and Croat commanders.  Judge Meron, a United States citizen who was formerly an Israeli diplomat, applied “tenacious pressure” on his fellow judges in such a way that it “makes you think he was determined to achieve an acquittal.”  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/world/europe/hague-judge-faults-acquittals-of-serb-and-croat-commanders.html?ref=world  International lawyers, human rights groups and other judges at the court claimed in private that the rulings had abruptly rewritten legal standards that had been applied in earlier cases.
The court was created in 1993 to address the atrocities committed in the wars in the former Yugoslavia.
“A decade ago, there was a very strong humanitarian message coming out of the tribunal, very concerned with the protection of civilians. It was not concerned with the prerogatives of the military and the police. This message has now been weakened, there is less protection for civilians and human rights.”
Other lawyers agreed that the tribunal, which has pioneered new laws, is sending a new message to other armies: they do not need to be as frightened of international justice as they might have been four or five years ago.
In earlier cases before the tribunal, a number of military or police officers and politicians were convicted of massacres and other war crimes committed by followers or subordinates on the principle that they had been members of a “joint criminal enterprise.”
In contrast, three Serbian leaders and two Croatian generals who played key roles during the war were acquitted recently because judges argued that the men had not specifically ordered or approved war crimes committed by subordinates.
Judge Meron has led a push for raising the bar for conviction in such cases, prosecutors say, to the point where a conviction has become nearly impossible.
After the only session to deliberate the acquittal that Judge Meron had drafted in the case of the two Croatian generals, the judge abruptly declined a request by two dissenting judges for further debate.

“The latest judgments here have brought before me a deep professional and moral dilemma not previously faced. The worst is the suspicion that some of my colleagues have been behind a shortsighted political pressure that completely changes the premises of my work in my service to wisdom and the law.”