Radovan Karadzik sentenced to 40 years in prison for genocide.

After the Nazi holocaust was discovered at the end of World War II most decent people said that nothing of the kind must ever be allowed to happen again.

And sadly that honourable objective has been nowhere near to being realised. Again and again we have seen instances of state sponsored terror and occasionally outright genocide.

And all too often, while the little fish may get caught, the main perpetrators get away with it.

Not this time.

It has not happened many times in my lifetime, but this week an architect of state-sponsored genocide, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzik, was brought to justice before an international court, convicted after a fair trial, and sentenced to forty years in prison, which is likely to be the rest of his natural life.

I live in hope that a few more monsters like him - Bashar Assad and Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi are currently at the top of my list - might meet the same fate.

Each time it happens it sends a signal to the world, both to dictators and their potential victims, that sometimes, justice can prevail.

Each time it happens, even heads of government are that much more likely to think that ordering or allowing an atrocity might have consequences for them personally.

Each time it happens, those who might stand up against such atrocities are given hope that they might actually prevail.

Each time it happens it makes the world just that bit more a better place.

The world is a better place today because Radovan Karadzik has been brought to justice.

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