This doesn't solve the problem directly but putting spaces around the 1 works:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
#+BEGIN_LaTeX
\newcommand{\norm}[ 1 ]{\lVert#1\rVert}
#+END_LaTeX
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

(and also works with the header version).

Yes, it's not a big deal, but the header version doesn't have this problem anymore.

Ruud