Is Radovan Karadzic's arrrest a milestone in international justice?

After thirteen years on the run, Radovan Karadzic has been detained by Serbian authorities to stand trial for war crimes committed during the Yugoslav wars. The conflict saw ethnic cleansing, genocide and grave human rights violations.

Karadzic has been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for authorising the killing of thousands of civilians during the siege of Sarajevo in the mid 1990s and the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica.

ICTY prosecutor Serge Brammertz said "this is a very important day for the victims who have waited for this arrest for over a decade. It is also an important day for international justice because it clearly demonstrates that nobody is beyond the reach of the law and that sooner or later all fugitives will be brought to justice."

The ICTY welcomed his arrest by stating it "may be considered another milestone in the development of international law and further fulfillment of the Tribunal's mandate to bring to justice the most senior persons alleged to be most responsible for war crimes in the Yugoslav conflicts."

Is Karadzic's arrest a milestone in international law? Does it in any way signal the end of impunity for those accused of war crimes and will it lead to the arrest of Ratko Mladic?

Discuss below