Peremptory norm
Encyclopedia
A peremptory norm is a fundamental principle of international law
which is accepted by the international community of states
as a norm
from which no derogation
is ever permitted.
There is no clear agreement regarding precisely which norms are jus cogens nor how a norm reaches that status, but it is generally accepted that jus cogens includes the prohibition of genocide
, maritime piracy
, slaving in general (to include slavery
as well as the slave trade), torture
, and wars of aggression and territorial aggrandizement
.
, which has traditionally required consent and allows the alteration of its obligations between states through treaties
, peremptory norms cannot be violated by any state "through international treaties or local or special customs or even general customary rules not endowed with the same normative force".
Under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
, any treaty that conflicts with a peremptory norm is void. The treaty allows for the emergence of new peremptory norms, but does not specify any peremptory norms. It does mention the prohibition on the threat of use of force and on the use of coercion to conclude an agreement:
The number of peremptory norms is considered limited but not exclusively catalogued. They are not listed or defined by any authoritative body, but arise out of case law and changing social and political attitudes. Generally included are prohibitions on waging aggressive war
, crimes against humanity, war crimes, maritime piracy
, genocide
, apartheid
, slavery
, and torture
. As an example, the world court has regarded the principle that it is impermissible for a State to acquire territory through war as a peremptory norm
Despite the seemingly clear weight of condemnation of such practices, some critics disagree with the division of international legal norms into a hierarchy. There is also disagreement over how such norms are recognized or established. The relatively new concept of peremptory norms seems to be at odds with the traditionally consensual nature of international law considered necessary to state sovereignty
.
Some peremptory norms define criminal offences considered to be enforceable against not only states but also individuals. That has been increasingly accepted since the Nuremberg Trials
(the first enforcement in world history of international norms upon individuals) and now might be considered uncontroversial. However, the language of peremptory norms was not used in connection with these trials, rather the basis of criminalisation and punishment of Nazi atrocities, was that civilisation could not tolerate their being ignored because it could not survive their being repeated.
There are often disagreements over whether a particular case violates a peremptory norm. As in other areas of law, states generally reserve the right to interpret the concept for themselves.
Many large states have accepted this concept. Some of them have ratified the Vienna Convention, while others have stated in their official statements that they accept the Vienna Convention as "codificatory". Some have applied the concept in their dealings with international organizations and other States.
, United States for two murders committed when he was 16 years old. Domingues brought the case in front of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights which delivered a non-legally binding report. The United States argued that there was no jus cogens norm that "establishes eighteen years as the minimum age at which an offender can receive a sentence of death". The Commission concluded that there was a "jus cogens norm not to impose capital punishment on individuals who committed their crimes when they had not yet reached 18 years of age."
The United States has subsequently banned the execution of juvenile offenders. Although not necessarily in response to the above non-binding report, the Supreme Court cited evolving international norms as one of the reasons for the ban. (Roper v. Simmons
).
stated in Prosecutor v. Furundžija that there is a jus cogens for the prohibition against torture. It also stated that every State is entitled "to investigate, prosecute and punish or extradite individuals accused of torture, who are present in a territory under its jurisdiction." Therefore, there is universal jurisdiction over torture. The rationale for this is that "the torturer has become, like the pirate and the slave trader before him, hostis humani generis
, an enemy of all mankind."
Further to this, there is no allowance for states to make reservations to the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Torture, and the Convention is considered to bind all states, not just those party to it.
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
which is accepted by the international community of states
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
as a norm
Norm (sociology)
Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
from which no derogation
Derogation
Derogation is the partial revocation of a law, as opposed to abrogation or the total abolition of a law. The term is used in both civil law and common law. It is sometimes used, loosely, to mean abrogation, as in the legal maxim: Lex posterior derogat priori, i.e...
is ever permitted.
There is no clear agreement regarding precisely which norms are jus cogens nor how a norm reaches that status, but it is generally accepted that jus cogens includes the prohibition of genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
, maritime piracy
Piracy
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator...
, slaving in general (to include slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
as well as the slave trade), torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, and wars of aggression and territorial aggrandizement
War of aggression
A war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense usually for territorial gain and subjugation. The phrase is distinctly modern and diametrically opposed to the prior legal international standard of "might makes right", under...
.
Status of peremptory norms under international law
Unlike ordinary customary lawCustomary international law
Customary international law are those aspects of international law that derive from custom. Along with general principles of law and treaties, custom is considered by the International Court of Justice, jurists, the United Nations, and its member states to be among the primary sources of...
, which has traditionally required consent and allows the alteration of its obligations between states through treaties
Treaty
A treaty is an express agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as an agreement, protocol, covenant, convention or exchange of letters, among other terms...
, peremptory norms cannot be violated by any state "through international treaties or local or special customs or even general customary rules not endowed with the same normative force".
Under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties is a treaty concerning the international law on treaties between states. It was adopted on 22 May 1969 and opened for signature on 23 May 1969. The Convention entered into force on 27 January 1980. The VCLT has been ratified by 111 states as of November...
, any treaty that conflicts with a peremptory norm is void. The treaty allows for the emergence of new peremptory norms, but does not specify any peremptory norms. It does mention the prohibition on the threat of use of force and on the use of coercion to conclude an agreement:
"A treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law. For the purposes of the present Convention, a peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of states as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character."
The number of peremptory norms is considered limited but not exclusively catalogued. They are not listed or defined by any authoritative body, but arise out of case law and changing social and political attitudes. Generally included are prohibitions on waging aggressive war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
, crimes against humanity, war crimes, maritime piracy
Piracy
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator...
, genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
, apartheid
Crime of apartheid
The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other...
, slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, and torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
. As an example, the world court has regarded the principle that it is impermissible for a State to acquire territory through war as a peremptory norm
Despite the seemingly clear weight of condemnation of such practices, some critics disagree with the division of international legal norms into a hierarchy. There is also disagreement over how such norms are recognized or established. The relatively new concept of peremptory norms seems to be at odds with the traditionally consensual nature of international law considered necessary to state sovereignty
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
.
Some peremptory norms define criminal offences considered to be enforceable against not only states but also individuals. That has been increasingly accepted since the Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
(the first enforcement in world history of international norms upon individuals) and now might be considered uncontroversial. However, the language of peremptory norms was not used in connection with these trials, rather the basis of criminalisation and punishment of Nazi atrocities, was that civilisation could not tolerate their being ignored because it could not survive their being repeated.
There are often disagreements over whether a particular case violates a peremptory norm. As in other areas of law, states generally reserve the right to interpret the concept for themselves.
Many large states have accepted this concept. Some of them have ratified the Vienna Convention, while others have stated in their official statements that they accept the Vienna Convention as "codificatory". Some have applied the concept in their dealings with international organizations and other States.
Execution of juvenile offenders
The case of Michael Domingues v. United States provides an example of an international body's opinion that a particular norm is of a jus cogens nature. Michael Domingues had been convicted and sentenced to death in NevadaNevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
, United States for two murders committed when he was 16 years old. Domingues brought the case in front of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights which delivered a non-legally binding report. The United States argued that there was no jus cogens norm that "establishes eighteen years as the minimum age at which an offender can receive a sentence of death". The Commission concluded that there was a "jus cogens norm not to impose capital punishment on individuals who committed their crimes when they had not yet reached 18 years of age."
The United States has subsequently banned the execution of juvenile offenders. Although not necessarily in response to the above non-binding report, the Supreme Court cited evolving international norms as one of the reasons for the ban. (Roper v. Simmons
Roper v. Simmons
Roper v. Simmons, was a decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that it is unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes committed while under the age of 18. The 5-4 decision overruled the Court's prior ruling upholding such sentences on offenders above or at the...
).
Torture
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former YugoslaviaInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...
stated in Prosecutor v. Furundžija that there is a jus cogens for the prohibition against torture. It also stated that every State is entitled "to investigate, prosecute and punish or extradite individuals accused of torture, who are present in a territory under its jurisdiction." Therefore, there is universal jurisdiction over torture. The rationale for this is that "the torturer has become, like the pirate and the slave trader before him, hostis humani generis
Hostis humani generis
Hostis humani generis is a legal term of art that originates from admiralty law. Before the adoption of public international law, maritime pirates and slavers were held to be beyond legal protection, and could be dealt with as seen fit by any nation, even if that nation had not been directly...
, an enemy of all mankind."
Further to this, there is no allowance for states to make reservations to the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Torture, and the Convention is considered to bind all states, not just those party to it.