Includes bibliographical references and index.

International law -- The social contract -- The interests of the international community -- Human dignity as a general principle of law -- The authority of jus cogens -- Expression of an international social contract -- Historical antecedents -- The formal source of peremptory norms -- Normativity and positivism : a reconciliation -- Comtemporary legal foundations -- The content of jus cogens -- Individual responsibility -- The form of jus cogens -- The enforcement of jus cogens : obligations erga omnes -- State responsibility and jus cogens -- An illustration : the Libya crisis -- Realizing the international social contract -- Legal observations -- Theoretical implications -- Annex.

"One of the most complex doctrines in contemporary international law, jus cogens is the immediate product of the socialization of the international community following the Second World War. However, the doctrine resonates in a centuries-old legal tradition which constrains the dynamics of voluntarism that characterize conventional international law. To reconcile this modern iteration of individual-oriented public order norms with the traditionally State-based form of international law, Thomas Weatherall applies the idea of a social contract to structure the analysis of jus cogens into four areas: authority, sources, content and enforcement. The legal and political implications of this analysis give form to jus cogens as the product of interrelation across an individual-oriented normative framework, a State-based legal order, and values common to the international community as a whole"--