Theodor Meron Re-Elected Hague Tribunal President

The ICTY’s judges on Tuesday re-elected Meron as president and Carmel Agius as vice-president for two- year terms starting from November 17.

The decision will mean that Meron remains president of the Tribunal until the UN-backed court shuts down in 2016.

Meron received 12 votes, while judge O-Gon Kwon, who also ran for the presidency, received the backing of six judges. Judge Alphons Orie was a candidate for the vice-presidency, but he was defeated by Agius.

Kwon and Orie are presidents of the first instance trials of former Bosnian Serb political and military chiefs Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, who are being tried respectively for genocide and other crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the early 1990s conflict.

This is the third time that 83-year-old Meron has been elected as the president of the Hague Tribunal.

Meron was subjected to fierce criticism from victims’ associations in the region after a letter from judge Frederik Harhoff criticising recent acquittals of high-ranking military leaders was made public.