112 Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its fifty-third session obligations towards the international community as a whole640 all concern obligations which, it is generally accepted, arise under peremptory norms of general international law. Likewise the examples of peremptory norms given by the Commission in its commentary to what became article 53 of the 1969 Vienna Convention641 involve obligations to the international community as a whole. But there is at least a difference in emphasis. While peremptory norms of general international law focus on the scope and priority to be given to a certain number of fundamental obligations, the focus of obligations to the international community as a whole is essentially on the legal interest of all States in compliance—i.e. in terms of the present articles, in being entitled to invoke the responsibility of any State in breach. Consistently with the difference in their focus, it is appropriate to reflect the consequences of the two concepts in two distinct ways. First, serious breaches of obligations arising under peremptory norms of general international law can attract additional consequences, not only for the responsible State but for all other States. Secondly, all States are entitled to invoke responsibility for breaches of obligations to the international community as a whole. The first of these propositions is the concern of the present chapter; the second is dealt with in article 48. Article 40. Application of this chapter 1. This chapter applies to the international responsibility which is entailed by a serious breach by a State of an obligation arising under a peremptory norm of general international law. 2. A breach of such an obligation is serious if it involves a gross or systematic failure by the responsible State to fulfil the obligation. Commentary (1) Article 40 serves to define the scope of the breaches covered by the chapter. It establishes two criteria in order to distinguish “serious breaches of obligations under peremptory norms of general international law” from other types of breaches. The first relates to the character of the obligation breached, which must derive from a peremptory norm of general international law. The second qualifies 640 According to ICJ, obligations erga omnes “derive, for example, in contemporary international law, from the outlawing of acts of aggression, and of genocide, as also from the principles and rules concerning the basic rights of the human person, including protection from slavery and racial discrimination”: Barcelona Traction (see footnote 25 above), at p. 32, para. 34. See also East Timor (footnote 54 above); Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (ibid.); and Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Preliminary Objections (ibid.). 641 The Commission gave the following examples of treaties which would violate the article due to conflict with a peremptory norm of general international law, or a rule of jus cogens: “(a) a treaty contemplating an unlawful use of force contrary to the principles of the Charter, (b) a treaty contemplating the performance of any other act criminal under international law, and (c) a treaty contemplating or conniving at the commission of such acts, such as trade in slaves, piracy or genocide, in the suppression of which every State is called upon to co-operate … treaties violating human rights, the equality of States or the principle of self-determination were mentioned as other possible examples”, Yearbook … 1966, vol. II, p. 248. the intensity of the breach, which must have been serious in nature. Chapter III only applies to those violations of international law that fulfil both criteria. (2) The first criterion relates to the character of the obligation breached. In order to give rise to the application of this chapter, a breach must concern an obligation arising under a peremptory norm of general international law. In accordance with article 53 of the 1969 Vienna Convention, a peremptory norm of general international law is one which is: accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character. The concept of peremptory norms of general international law is recognized in international practice, in the jurisprudence of international and national courts and tribunals and in legal doctrine.642 (3) It is not appropriate to set out examples of the peremptory norms referred to in the text of article 40 itself, any more than it was in the text of article 53 of the 1969 Vienna Convention. The obligations referred to in article 40 arise from those substantive rules of conduct that prohibit what has come to be seen as intolerable because of the threat it presents to the survival of States and their peoples and the most basic human values. (4) Among these prohibitions, it is generally agreed that the prohibition of aggression is to be regarded as peremptory. This is supported, for example, by the Commission’s commentary to what was to become article 53,643 uncontradicted statements by Governments in the course of the Vienna Conference on the Law of Treaties,644 the submissions of both parties in the Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua case and the Court’s own position in that case.645 There also seems to be widespread agreement with other examples listed in the Commission’s commentary to article 53: viz. the prohibitions against slavery and the slave trade, genocide, and racial discrimination and apartheid. These practices have been prohibited in widely ratified international treaties and conventions admitting of no exception. There was general agreement among Governments as to the peremptory character of these prohibitions at the Vienna Conference. As to the peremptory character of the prohibition against 642 For further discussion of the requirements for identification of a norm as peremptory, see paragraph (5) of the commentary to article 26, with selected references to the case law and literature. 643 Yearbook … 1966, vol. II, pp. 247–249. 644 In the course of the conference, a number of Governments characterized as peremptory the prohibitions against aggression and the illegal use of force: see Official Records of the United Nations Conference on the Law of Treaties, First Session, Vienna, 26 March to 24 May 1968, summary records of the plenary meeting and of the meetings of the Committee of the Whole (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.68.V.7), 52nd meeting, paras. 3, 31 and 43; 53rd meeting, paras. 4, 9, 15, 16, 35, 48, 59 and 69; 54th meeting, paras. 9, 41, 46 and 55; 55th meeting, paras. 31 and 42; and 56th meeting, paras. 6, 20, 29 and 51. 645 Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (see footnote 36 above), pp. 100–101, para. 190; see also the separate opinion of magistrate Nagendra Singh (president), p. 153.