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(CNN) -- Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's arrival at The Hague is being hailed as an important step forward for world peace and a huge boost for the United Nations-appointed court that will try him.

"I firmly believe that there can be no lasting peace in a society unless the criminal justice system is allowed to take its course," said Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal's chief war crimes prosecutor.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was given authority by the U.N. Security Council in 1993 to try individuals for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. One expert in international law and human rights said obtaining custody of Milosevic enhances the tribunal's stature in the eyes of the world.

"It's an extraordinary milestone for the tribunal, which was established with virtually no authority in 1993. And it now has established enormous authority," American University law professor Diane Orentlicher told CNN.

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But according to Reuters, upon his arrival at The Hague, Milosevic told a prosecutor, "I don't recognize your court."

Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. envoy to the Balkans and architect of the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia, said he made sure Milosevic acknowledged the jurisdiction of the war crimes tribunal during negotiations in 1995.

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"It is enshrined in the Dayton Peace Accords, but he never intended to comply with it," Holbrooke said. "He never imagined he would end up where he is today."

Milosevic was indicted while in office in 1999 for the crackdown carried out by security forces in Kosovo against ethnic Albanians before NATO's air war. Charges against him include murder, deportation and persecution of people on political, racial and ethnic grounds during his tenure as Yugoslav president and Serbian leader.

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who led the alliance's air war against Yugoslavia, said there is no shortage of evidence.

"The facts are out -- they're already out on the ground in Serbia, where the trucks have been pulled out of the Danube and the graves have been dug up in the army training camps, showing the decomposed bodies of the Albanians that were killed," Clark told CNN.

If convicted, the maximum sentence Milosevic could receive is life in prison.

Like the Nuremberg trials for accused Nazi war criminals after World War II, the Yugoslav tribunal has the support of the international community for holding individuals to account for alleged violations of human rights during a war.

"If this painstaking experiment in international humanitarian law succeeds, the tribunal will ensure that individuals responsible for atrocities, having been fairly tried and convicted, are held accountable for their actions," wrote Mark Ellis in Duke University's Law Journal of the U.N. tribunal.

Unlike the German trials, the U.N. tribunal is a nonmilitary court. And Orentlicher points out that it was nonmilitary authority that put Milosevic in the court's custody.

"The point I would like to emphasize is how important it is that it was Serbian authorities who surrendered Milosevic," Orentlicher said. "He wasn't snatched by NATO peacekeepers; he was surrendered by democratically elected leaders in Serbia.

"It's really a turning point for that country's own transition away from the despotism that Milosevic presided over, too -- the beginning of a real, vibrant democracy," she added.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who played an instrumental role in supporting NATO's air war against Yugoslavia, said Milosevic's trial will help the people of Serbia.

The prosecutor agreed.

"The history of Serbia is not under examination. It is Slobodan Milosevic as an individual who will now face trial on the charges brought against him," Del Ponte said.