War criminals beware: there’s no hiding from the long arm of international justice. 

That was the message this week, delivered by two different courts in The Hague. 

On Tuesday, a panel of judges at the International Criminal Court convicted former Congolese vice president and militia leader Jean Pierre Bemba of war crimes and crimes against humanity. That, itself, is nothing new. The ICC has several ongoing cases and has rendered a few judgements so far. 

What made this ruling particularly significant is who was doing the ruling: the judges were all female. Bemba was found guilty for rapes and pillaging conducted by troops under his control in Central African Republic from 2002-2003.  This was the first time that the International Criminal Court convicted a commander for atrocities not committed directly by the commander, but by troops under his command responsibility. The fact that the underlying crimes pertained to sexual abuse and exploitation, and that the panel of judges who rendered the verdict were all female, was also groundbreaking. Bemba now faces years in jail. And the principle that a commander can be held liable for the the rapes committed by his soldiers is now firmly established in the International Criminal Court. 

Two days later, across town at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Radovan Karadzic was convicted of several counts of crimes against humanity, including genocide, for his role in the Balkan conflict twenty years ago. Karadzic was the political leader of the breakaway Serb republic of Bosnia and was accused of orchestrating the massacre of Bosnians throughout the country in a campaign to consolidate control over parts of Bosnia-Hertzogovina. Karadzic was accused—and this week convicted—of genocide for his role in ordering the killing of 7,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica in 1995. 

After Slobodan Milosevic, who was the leader of Serbia, Karadzic was the highest profile person to stand trial at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. But Milosevic died in prison while his trial was still ongoing. The Karadzic verdict, delivered this week, was a resounding affirmation of the principle that the process of justice may be long, but it will ultimately not be denied when it comes to prosecuting someone for the worst crime on the face of the earth.