5 14. Contemporary international law (treaty-based and general) has been characterized overall by the emergence and evolution of its peremptory norms (jus cogens), and an increased awareness, on a virtually universal scale, of the principle of humanity.17 Grave human rights violations, acts of genocide and crimes against humanity, amongst other atrocities, violate absolute prohibitions of jus cogens.18 Humaneness – which is a feature of a new jus gentium of the twenty-first century – cuts across all the corpus juris of contemporary international law. In my opinions for this Court – including my concurring opinion in Advisory Opinion No. 16 on The Right to Information on Consular Assistance in the Framework of the Guarantees of the Due Process of Law (of October 1, 1999) – I have called this development a historic process of the true humanization of international law (para. 35). 15. I have already described my own conception of the fundamental role and central position of the general principles of law in any legal system (national or international) extensively and in detail in my concurring opinion in Advisory Opinion No. 18 on The Juridical Status and Rights of Undocumented Migrants (2003). Already, in 1951, in its Advisory Opinion on Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had recognized the principles underlying this Convention as principles that were: "obligatory for the States, even in the absence of any treaty-based obligation."19 16. In its constant case law when interpreting and applying the American Convention, the Inter-American Court has consistently invoked the general principles of law.20 Among these principles, those endowed with a truly fundamental nature form the substratum of the legal system itself, revealing the right to law to which all human beings are entitled.21 In the domain of international human rights law, the principle of the dignity of the human being and that of the inalienability of his inherent rights belong to this category of fundamental principles. It its Advisory Opinion No. 18 on The Juridical Status and Rights of Undocumented Migrants (2003), the Inter-American Court referred expressly to both principles.22 17 T.O. Elias, "New Trends in Contemporary International Law", in Contemporary Issues in International Law (eds. D. Freestone, S. Subedi and S. Davidson), The Hague, Kluwer, 2002, pp. 11-12. 18 Cf. M.C. Bassiouni, Crimes against Humanity in International Criminal Law, 2a. ed. rev., The Hague, Kluwer, 1999, pp. 210-211, with regard to crimes against humanity. 19 ICJ, ICJ Reports (1951) p. 23. 20 Cf. Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), Five Pensioners vs. Peru (Judgment of February 28, 2003), para. 156; IACtHR, Cantos vs. Argentina (Preliminary Objections, Judgment of September 7, 2001), para. 37; IACtHR, Baena Ricardo et al. vs. Panama (Judgment of February 2, 2001), para. 98; IACtHR, Neira Alegría vs. Peru (Preliminary Objections, Judgment of December 11, 1991), para. 29; IACtHR, Velásquez Rodríguez vs. Honduras (Judgment of July 29, 1988), para. 184; and cf. also IACtHR, Advisory Opinion No. 17, on The Juridical Status and Human Rights of the Child (of August 28, 2002), paras. 66 and 87; IACtHR, Advisory Opinion No. 16, on The Right to Information on Consular Assistance in the Framework of the Guarantees of the Due Process of Law (of October 1, 1999), paras. 58, 113 and 128; IACtHR, Advisory Opinion No. 14, on International Responsibility for the Promulgation and Enforcement of Laws in Violation of the American Convention on Human Rights (of December 9, 1994), para. 35. 21 A.A. Cançado Trindade, Tratado de Direito Internacional dos Direitos Humanos, tome III, Porto Alegre/Brasil, S.A. Fabris Ed., 2003, pp. 524-525. 22 Paragraph 157 of the said Advisory Opinion.