... it is accepted that the basis for international relations is to be the commonality of humankind and the mutual benefit of states. Even with the emergence of legal positivism, the concept of peremptory norms in international law does not seem to have eroded. Although, at first glance, legal positivism appears to oppose the acceptance of unwritten laws, McCormick5 has put forward that even the strictest legal positivists are admitting to the requirement of moral considerations or value judgments when considering theories of law incorporated into the law of treaties. Berman6 claims that this complementary approach of natural and positivist schools of thought has had a favorable effect on the development of jus cogens; the legal system would function under a positivist approach of obeying all sovereign-made law, until met with an unjust law, which is when the natural law principle such a s jus cogens can override the unjust law. ...

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