4 (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h) (i) (j) (k) Argentina has not adapted its domestic laws to conform to the international standards set by the American Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the matter of juvenile criminal justice. They contend that the criminal justice system for juvenile offenders is governed by a law (Law 22,278 on the Juvenile Criminal Justice System) enacted on August 20, 1980, under the last military dictatorship, and amended by Law 22,803. The petitioners add that under the provisions of the law, persons between the ages of 16 and 18 who commit crimes face the same penalties that adult offenders face; the law does not establish any ceiling on the length of the sentence. Judges have disregarded the meaning and sense of Article 37(b) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides that imprisonment of a child “… shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time,” even though Article 4 of Law 22,278 (which establishes the Juvenile Criminal Justice System) gives the judge the authority to reduce a juvenile’s sentence for a given crime to the punishment called for in the case of an attempt to commit the same crime. Judges have not heeded the principles of exceptionality [last resort] and brevity [shortest appropriate period of time] and, when imposing sentences of life imprisonment, have disregarded other guiding principles of juvenile criminal justice such as: the best interests of the child; the need for the minimum intervention under criminal law, and the principle of proportionality in the application of criminal punishments to children. In their rulings, judges have not explained the reasons why they discarded the possibility of lighter sentences, a possibility that the law itself allowed. Argentina is the only Latin American country that imposes this type of sentence on persons who have committed crimes as children; the maximum sentences in the other countries of the region are not nearly as severe as they are under Argentine law. Judges have not taken into account the good conduct reports presented in connection with these juveniles while they were confined to detention centers for children and adolescents. Nor have they factored in other personal circumstances. The sentence that the alleged victims are to serve is no different –either in length or the way in which it will be served- from a similar sentence given to an individual who committed a crime as an adult, as the judges gave the alleged victims the most severe sentence allowed under Argentine law. Sentences of life imprisonment have a serious, harmful, alienating effect on adolescents. In Argentina, when one receives a life sentence, one cannot apply for parole until one has served 20 years, which is excessively harsh for offenders under the age of 18. In principle, the latter will spend part of their adolescence, youth and adult life in maximum security prisons, which takes a very heavy toll on their physical and moral well being and limits their personal growth and development. A life sentence constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as it denies the person so sentenced any possibility of growing up in society. The opportunity for parole does not materialize until after the person has served 20 years of his/her life sentence; there is no possibility of a review by a judge before that 20 years have been served, no matter how the prisoner’s conduct may have improved; to a large extent parole depends on how the prisoner has conformed to the conditions imposed by the Federal Penitentiary Service, which would appear to be basically a security force. The uncertainty and the possibility that one could spend one’s life in prison for deeds committed at a time when one’s personality was not fully developed, leave persons sentenced to life in prison in a constant state of tension and anxiety. Although the general consensus in Argentina is that the Juvenile Criminal Justice System needs to be amended, the country has not yet embarked upon a serious and probing discussion of the basic principles that should steer the system’s reform. For the last thirty years, the kind of strong, determined political resolve necessary to bring the country’s domestic laws in line with the international standards that the State has accepted has been lacking. The petitioners therefore conclude that the imposition of sentences of life imprisonment in the case of persons who committed crimes when they were under the age of 18 is a