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derogable rights listed in Article 4 of the ICCPR and Article 27 of
the American Convention on Human Rights.231
In January 2019, the Commission published the most
recent report by Special Rapporteur Tladi on peremptory norms
of general international law. While the report includes the
prohibition of apartheid and racial discrimination in its
illustrative list of jus cogens norms,232 the report stresses that the
content of the norm is “a composite act” made up of “the
prohibition of apartheid with racial discrimination as an integral
part of that.”233 It is important to note, however, that almost all
of the sources which the report draws upon to establish its
definition identify racial discrimination as a separate and
distinct jus cogens norm, with the prohibition on racial
discrimination generally defined in terms of severe or systematic
forms of racial discrimination.234
As part of his line of reasoning, the Rapporteur refers to
the International Convention on the Suppression and
Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (Apartheid Convention)235
and the definition of apartheid contained therein as a potential
indicator of the scope of the content of this peremptory norm.236
Crucially, Article 2 of the Apartheid Convention provides that
the term “the crime of apartheid,” includes, inter alia, at Article
2(c):
[A]ny legislative measures and other measures
calculated to prevent a racial group or groups
from participation in the political, social, economic
and cultural life of the country and the deliberate
creation of conditions preventing the full
development of such a group or groups, in
particular by denying to members of a racial
231 LAURI HANNIKAINEN, PEREMPTORY NORMS (JUS COGENS) IN
INTERNATIONAL LAW: HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT, CRITERIA, PRESENT STATUS
340–42 (1988).
232 Special Rapporteur, Fourth Report on Jus Cogens, supra note 212,
¶ 60.
233 Id. ¶ 91.
234 See, e.g., JOHN DUGARD, RECOGNITION AND THE UNITED NATIONS
156–58 (1987); Alain Pellet, Comments in Response to Christine Chinkin and in
Defense of Jus Cogens as the Best Bastion Against the Excesses of Fragmentation,
17 FINNISH Y.B. INT’L L. 83, 85 (2006); Barcelona Traction, supra note 216.
235 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of
the Crime of Apartheid, Nov. 30, 1973, 1015 U.N.T.S. 243 [hereinafter Apartheid
Convention].
236 Special Rapporteur, Fourth Report on Jus Cogens, supra note 212,
¶ 91.