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Published in:
2016 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Universal Wrongs
Jus Cogens
Author : Thomas W. Simon
Published in: Genocide, Torture, and Terrorism
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan US
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“It’s a bird, It’s a plane…” It’s a sham; it’s jus cogens.1 Many jurists find peremptory norms2 an empty concept—”at best useless and at worst harmful…. “3 Yet, the task of finding the highest or universal norms of international law has proponents as well as detractors. Among publicists, only a few deny the existence of jus cogens.4 Yet, beyond an agreement that it exists, jus cogens remains clouded in mystery. This chapter blows away some of the mysterious fog by defending a single jus cogens, universal norm, namely, the prohibition against genocide. Armed with a defensible core concept of jus cogens, the more troublesome outer perimeters become more tractable.