- 11 - CDL-AD(2006)009 the most basic principles governing the creation and performance of legal obligations”18. The giving of a permission is comparable to the conclusion of a treaty insofar as the validity of consent is concerned. In any case, the validity of any consent as a circumstance precluding wrongfulness in international law is limited by the rule enunciated in Article 26 of the ILC Articles on State Responsibility: “Nothing in this Chapter precludes the wrongfulness of any act of a State which is not in conformity with an obligation arising under a peremptory norm of general international law.” 43. A norm is of peremptory character (jus cogens) when it “is accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted” (Article 53 of the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties). These norms include, inter alia, the prohibitions of genocide, aggression, crimes against humanity, slavery, piracy and torture.19 44. In order to be considered wrongful, an act must be inconsistent with an international obligation of the State which commits it. For Council of Europe member States, in the present context, the obligation in question stems directly from the European Convention on Human Rights, namely from the obligation not to expose anyone to the risk of treatment contrary to Article 3, the obligation to prevent any detention in breach of Article 5 and the obligation to investigate into any substantiated claim that an individual has been taken into unacknowledged custody. These obligations may be breached by a State also by merely but knowingly letting its territory be used by a third State in order to commit a breach of international law. 45. For a State knowingly to provide transit facilities to another State may amount to providing assistance to the latter in committing a wrongful act, if the former State is aware of the wrongful character of the act concerned. Under general international law (see Article 16 ILC Articles on State Responsibility) “a State which aids or assists another State in the commission of an internationally wrongful act by the latter is internationally responsible for doing so if: (a) that State does so with knowledge of the circumstances of the internationally wrongful act; and (b) the act would be internationally wrongful if committed by that State.” 46. The consequences of irregular transfers and secret detentions from the viewpoint of human rights law for Council of Europe member States will be examined below (see paras. 137-153). B. Human rights law a. The rights at issue 47. Council of Europe member States are committed to respecting fundamental rights, as defined by a number of international treaties, both at the universal level (including the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”), and the 1987 UN Convention 18 Border and Transborder Armed Actions, Nicaragua v. Honduras, Jurisdiction of the Court and Admissibility of the Application, ICJ Rep. 1988, 69, 105, para. 105. 19 See ICTY, Prosecutor v. Furundzija, International Legal Materials 38 (1999) 317, at p. 349; further references in: Andreas Paulus, Jus Cogens in a Time of Hegemony and Fragmentation, Nordic Journal of International Law 74 (2005) 297-334 (at p. 306).