37 - The Right to Life and the Responsibility of Individuals

Summary

Under international law, individual responsibility exists for violation of jus cogens norms, which include arbitrary deprivation of life, resulting from acts or omissions. Peremptory norms of international law are binding not only on all States, corporations, armed groups, and organisations, but also on individuals. As the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic declared in 2012: ‘at a minimum, human rights obligations constituting peremptory international law (ius cogens) bind States, individuals and non-State collective entities, including armed groups’. While the most obvious route for realising individual responsibility for a violation of the right to life is through the criminal law – domestic or international – there are also civil remedies available in certain States. This is most notably the case in the United States (US), based on the Alien Tort Statute of 1789 or actions under Section 1983 of the US Code.