10 INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN ARMED CONFLICT not party to a particular treaty. Many of the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are widely regarded to have this character.7 Furthermore, some rights are recognized as having a special status as peremptory norms of customary international law (ius cogens), which means that no derogation is admissible under any circumstance and that they prevail, in particular, over other international obligations. The prohibitions of torture, slavery, genocide, racial discrimination and crimes against humanity, and the right to self-determination are widely recognized as peremptory norms, as reflected in the International Law Commission’s draft articles on State responsibility.8 Similarly, the Human Rights Committee has indicated that provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that represent customary international law (and a fortiori when they have the character of peremptory norms) may not be the subject of reservations.9 The Committee added that “a State may not reserve the right to engage in slavery, to torture, to subject persons to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, to arbitrarily deprive persons of their lives, to arbitrarily arrest and detain persons, to deny freedom of thought, conscience and religion, to presume a person guilty unless he proves his innocence, to execute pregnant women or children, to permit the advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred, to deny to persons of marriageable age the right to marry, or to deny to minorities the right to enjoy their own culture, profess their own religion, or use their own language. And while reservations to particular clauses of article 14 may be acceptable, a general reservation to the right to a fair trial would not be.” The Committee, in line with article 4 of the Covenant, has also  See the Human Rights Committee’s observations—in its general comment No. 24 (1994) on issues relating to reservations made upon ratification or accession to the Covenant or the Optional Protocols thereto, or in relation to declarations under article 41 of the Covenant, and in its general comment No. 29 (2001)—that some rights in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also reflect norms of customary international law. 8 Draft articles on responsibility of States for internationally wrongful acts, adopted by the International Law Commission at its fifty-third session in 2001, reproduced in Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 2001, vol. II, Part II (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.04.V.17 (Part 2)). 9 General comment No. 24 (1994), para. 8. 7