Defenders of the United Nations have long held up the world body’s war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as a key success and evidence that the organization can make a positive difference in the world.

On July 29, however, the appeals panel of that celebrated tribunal handed down a ruling that revealed the supposed triumph of international justice to be nothing more than another U.N. failure.

The tribunal’s appellate judges threw out 16 of the 19 convictions against Bosnian Croat General Tihomir Blaskic and reduced his sentence from 45 years — one of the harshest that the tribunal had handed out — to time already served and ordered him to be released a few days later.

Blaskic commanded Bosnian Croat forces in the 1992 to 1995 war. He was convicted, according to the Associated Press, of ordering an ethnic cleansing campaign against Muslim villages, specifically a series of massacres near the village of Ahmici in April 1993 that killed more than 100 people, including dozens of women.

The appeals court based its ruling on new documents made available by the Croatian intelligence service after Blaskic’s sentencing. The court said that these documents showed the late Croatian President and his inner circle were likely responsible for the war crimes.

Based on this new evidence, the appellate judges dismissed the vast majority of the charges against Blaskic while upholding his convictions for illegal detainment and inhumane treatment of prisoners.

Needless to say, Muslim Bosnians and Croats reacted very differently to this ruling. The Bosnians protested the appeals court ruling while the Croats celebrated it.

But ultimately, while everyone hopes that justice will finally be done correctly, the tribunal has already revealed itself to be little better than a kangaroo court by its actions in this case. And, in that respect, the question of Blaskic’s guilt or innocence is immaterial.

Either the tribunal unjustly convicted Blaskic of crimes he did not commit or Blaskic is guilty of all the charges against him and is now being released without sufficient punishment. In either scenario, the tribunal has utterly failed in its mission.

It has been said that it’s better for 10 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be convicted unjustly. That sentiment is at the core of our justice system. And since the tribunal adopted the same burden of proof that U.S. and British courts require for a criminal conviction — proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt — we can extend the same sentiment to the tribunal. In fact, the tribunal arguably ought to be held to a higher standard, since it is a creature of the United Nations and thus operates under the world body’s central mission of promoting peace and justice. With justice as a key part of its founding mission, it’s reasonable to expect near perfection in the tribunal’s administration of justice. Obviously, if the tribunal convicted Blaskic unjustly, it utterly botched its primary reason for existence.

The other possibility is even more troubling — that despite the new evidence, Blaskic is guilty and that he oversaw ethnic cleansing and mass murder.

The U.N.’s International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was established to provide some measure of justice for the families and countrymen of those who were massacred in the bloody and brutal conflict and to allow the international community to punish those who led the slaughter.

If Blaskic is guilty, yet is allowed to go free, the justice that is owed to the victims and the survivors of the butchery will be thrown aside, and the United Nations, through its much ballyhooed tribunal, will have utterly broken its promise, once again demonstrating its total ineptitude in protecting peace and promoting justice.

From the few news reports available at present and without having seen the evidence firsthand, it is virtually impossible to reach any conclusion about Blaskic’s real guilt or innocence. Certainly, there is unanimity in hoping that the tribunal’s final decision is the correct one.

But in either case, the tribunal has failed to provide the justice it promised, either to the accused or to the victims of these terrible crimes.

Unfortunately, this failure is one of an ever-growing list of U.N shortcomings, and it further evidences the United Nations’ utter incompetence in everything it attempts. For the U.N. defenders who trumpet the tribunal as a success, it ought to serve as another wake-up call that their idealism and hope that the world body can succeed is ultimately misplaced.