Peremptory norms are non-derogable standards of international public policy which impose limits on how far governments, politicians, and diplomats can further their own goals in making international transactions. For example, certain core norms prohibit aggressive war, safeguard self-determination, and protect basic human rights in both peace and wartime. This monograph analyses the questions raised by the legal effects of peremptory norms of international law (jus cogens) in the light of their increasing importance in determining the permissible limits on the action of State and non-State...

There are frequent claims that the international legal regulation of international law is uncertain, vague, ambiguous, or indeterminate, which does not support the stability, transparency, or predictability of international legal relations. This monograph examines the framework of interpretation in international law based on the premise of the effectiveness and determinacy of international legal regulation, which is a necessary pre-requisite for international law to be viewed as law.
This study examines this problem for the first time since these questions were addressed, and taken as the...

This monograph analyzes the questions raised by the legal effects of peremptory norms of international law (jus cogens). A comprehensive study of this problem has been lacking so far in international legal doctrine. Peremptory norms, although often criticized and even more often approached with skeptical nihilism, nevertheless attract growing doctrinal and practical attention and have increasing importance in determining the permissible limits on the action of State and non-State actors in different areas. In view of this overriding impact on what might otherwise be instances of the...

Over the past one hundred years, the conceptual and legal aspects of collective security have been the subject of much debate. Rapid developments within the United Nations, its precursor the League of Nations, and regional security institutions, as well as the interaction between them, mean this debate has not so far succeeded in capturing the essence and implications of collective security.
These developments in State and institutional practice strike at the heart of the entire system of collective security, which consists of universal, regional, and sub-regional levels, and indicate how...