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World Court Digest

I. Substantive International Law - First Part
2. SOURCES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
2.1. General Questions
2.1.4. Ius cogens / Obligations erga omnes

¤ Application of the Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
(Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia)
Counter Claims, Order of 17 December 1997,
I.C.J. Reports 1997, p. 243

[p. 258] 35. Whereas Bosnia and Herzegovina was right to point to the erga omnes character of the obligations flowing from the Genocide Convention (see Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1996, pp. 615-616, para. 31), and the Parties rightly recognized that in no case could one breach of the Convention serve as an excuse for another and whereas, however, the argument drawn from the absence of reciprocity in the scheme of the Convention is not determinative as regards the assessment of whether there is a legal connection between the principal claim and the counter-claim, in so far the two Parties pursue, with their respective claims, the same legal aim, namely the establishment of legal responsibility for violations of the Genocide Convention;