Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

jus cogens

n. [Latin "compelling law"] A mandatory norm of general international law from which no two or more nations may exempt themselves or release one another. Cf. JUS DISPOSITIVUM. "Viewed from the perspective of international law as understood in the first part of the 20th century, jus cogens seemed hardly conceivable, since at that time the will of States was taken as paramount: States could, between themselves, abrogate any of the rules of customary international law .... [Yet] [a]fter World War II the international community became conscious of the necessity for any legal order to be based on some consensus concerning fundamental values which were not at the disposal of the subjects of this legal order. As H. Mosler rightly stresses, there is a close connection between jus cogens and the recognition of a 'public order of the international community' (The International Society as a Legal Community (rev. ed. 1980 p. 19). Without expressly using the notion of jus cogens, the [International Court of Justice] implied its existence when it referred to obligations ergs omnes in its judgment of February 5, 1970 in the Barcelona Traction Case. The Court spoke of the 'obligations of a State towards the international community as a whole' where were 'the concern of all States' and for whose protection all States could be held to have a 'legal interest' (ICJ Reports (1970) p. 3, at 32). These obligations are seen as fundamentally different from those existing vis-a-vis another State in the field of diplomatic protection." Jochen Abr. Frowein, in 3 Encyclopedia of Public International Lain 66 (1997).