provision or precept, including that of extinguishment, can obstruct compliance with decisions of the Court regarding investigation and punishment of those responsible for human rights violations” (para.151). 42. In other cases before this Court, in addition to highlighting the development of a “true international system to oppose grave human rights violations,” to which the peremptory provisions of international law (the jus cogens) and the erga omnes obligations of protection have contributed decisively,41 I have argued that “one cannot deny the close link between reparations and combating impunity, as well as ensuring non-recidivism of the injurious acts, always and necessarily from the perspective of the victims. True reparatio, linked to realization of justice, requires overcoming obstructions of the duty to investigate and to punish those responsible, and putting an end to impunity.”42 43. The search for the truth –I have added- “constitutes the starting-point for the liberation as well as the protection of the human person; without truth (however unbearable it might come to be) one cannot be freed from the torment of uncertainty, nor is possible to exercise the protected rights.” 43 Achievement of the right to the truth –to whose legal construction this Court has been contributing systematically- is essential to preserve “the bonds and links of solidarity between the dead and the living, forming the unity of the human kind, with the respect due to ones and the others”.44 44. I cannot conclude this Separate Opinion in the instant case of the Gómez Paquiyauri brothers without referring to a point that I feel is equally significant and worthy of noticing. I do not see how we can deny that the aggravated international responsibility of the State affects the basic values of the contemporary international community. Enshrinement of jus cogens, constantly expanding,45 in turn reveals precisely the heartening openness of contemporary international law to higher and fundamental values, while also envisioning, on a horizon that is becoming closer, the dawn of a truly universal international law. Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade Judge Pablo Saavedra-Alessandri Secretary 41 . I-A Ct of HR, Case of Blake versus Guatemala, Judgment on Reparations of 22.01.1999, Separate Opinion of Judge A.A. Cançado Trindade, para. 39. 42 . I-A Ct of HR, Case of Myrna Mack Chang versus Guatemala, Judgment of 25.11.2003, Separate Opinion of Judge A.A. Cançado Trindade, para. 46. 43 . I-A Ct of HR, Case of Bámaca Velásquez versus Guatemala , Judgment of 25.11.2000, Separate Opinion of Judge A.A. Cançado Trindade, para. 29. 44 . Ibid., Separate Opinion of Judge A.A. Cançado Trindade, para. 39. 45 . See my Concurring Opinion in Advisory Opinion n. 18 on The Legal Status and Rights of Migrants without Documents (of 17.09.2003), paras. 65-73.