The Scope and Application of Jus Cogens



The Scope and Application of Jus Cogens

Introduction

The aim of this assignment is to discuss the scope and application of jus cogens. Jus cogens include the mandatory standards for international law generally. This concept is defined by the Vienna Convention of 23 May 1969, in its Article 53. The importance of jus cogens or international imperative is derived from its contents. Their rules protect core values shared by the international community. The relationship between the consolidation of the concept of jus cogens and human rights is clear and imperative that the right illustrates perfectly the process of humanization of international law. This is also an area of international law that has considerable potential to transform the legal system as a whole and ultimately the international society.

A rule of jus cogens is characterized as mandatory by the States. This difference of international custom, which has traditionally required the consent of the States, allows alteration by treaties. By contrast, there is a rule which contradicts another of Jus cogens. Recognition of ius cogens rules means accepting certain hierarchy among the sources of international law , hierarchy does not exist in the past. The rules of jus cogens would collect a minimum consensus on fundamental values of the international community that would be imposed on the consent of the individual States. The work of the International Law Commission was welcomed and accepted by the majority of the Vienna conference.

Historical Development in Jus Cogens

Jus cogen is a Latin phrase used in the field of public international law, which refer to those rules of mandatory law or peremptory that do not support any act which is contrary to it. The aim of jus cogens is to protect the collective interests of all fundamental social groups, so that this kind of rules are at a higher hierarchical position with respect to other provisions of the ordinance. The existence of higher legal standards that guide the legal consciousness in the global society have a millennial data and its reception in the Convention Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties1969, which came to consecrate only the positively what already claimed both by case law and by the doctrine.

The term jus cogens are introduced to what we believe as Pandectists. It was mostly Windscheid who try to define the Jus cogens as the set of legal rules that preclude any arbitrary attitude of private persons; rules that apply and impose even assuming that the parties wanted to exclude. The various writers establish several classifications regarding these rules. Part of the doctrine provides that rules on the development of peoples and the man should be considered jus cogens so that these rules relate very closely to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations that we have seen are Jus cogens; as self-determination of peoples, sovereign equality and peaceful coexistence of peoples. The peremptory norm is then a legal category that is about on top of the custom of treaties, international ...