For, as he notes, the standard of a peremptory norm holds only in the extreme. Most would apply it to egregious abuse, such as slavery, genocide, and apartheid. Few could claim that it includes most civil rights, such as free speech, freedom of assembly, or a right to due process. That suits Prins fine. While he and Beach, supported by Pellet, join those who see human rights as transcending absolute state sovereignty and constituting a legitimate concern of the international community, neither seems eager to justify regular and wide-spread international intervention to correct every abuse, let alone, to impose democratic forms.
Beach sets the limits differently, but no less stringently.
After insisting at length on the perils should the international community fail to make human rights a concern, he then treats the option of intervention as highly circumscribed. Neither Prins nor Pellet would appear to disagree. In the end, however, while principle is important, all three authors know that the more intense dispute in the Kosovo case is over agency. Not whether morality or law by some fair, albeit contested reading justified forcible action from the outside, but whether the agent and auspices were legitimate. Pellet appears to acknowledge that, while intervention to end or prevent crimes against humanity has multiple grounds, armed intervention is another matter.