ABSTRACT
What can justice mean when genocide is the issue? Terrence Des Pres
The legal strictures against genocide constitute jus cogens: they are among the laws “accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole from which no derogation is permitted.” Jus cogens is associated with the principle of universal jurisdiction (quasi delicta juris gentium), which “applies to a limited number of crimes for which any State, even absent a personal or territorial link with the offence, is entitled to try the offender.”1
