CONCURRING OPINION OF THE JUDGE A.A. CANÇADO TRINDADE 1. I have voted in favor of the adoption, by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, of the present Judgment in the case of the Castro Castro Prison. Given the importance I attribute to some of the matters presented throughout the law proceedings before the Court in the present case, I find myself obliged to add to the present Judgment this Concurring Opinion, with my personal reflections as the grounds for my position regarding the deliberations carried out by the Tribunal. I will focus my reflections on eight basic items, specifically: a) Time and Law, now and forever; b) new reflections on time and Law; c) time and the vindication of the rights; d) the legal persons and facts; e) the emerging of the State’s international responsibility and the principle of proportionality; f) the recurrence of the crime of State: the forgotten juridical thought; g) the need and importance of the gender analysis; and h) oppressed and oppressor: the unsustainable domination and the primacy of Law. I. Time and Law, Now and Forever. 2. The relationship between time and Law has always been the object of my reflections, even way before becoming a Judge of this Court. In the bosom of the latter, the matter has been present in my Concurring Opinion (paras. 4-6) in the case of Blake versus Guatemala (merits, Judgment of 01.24.1998), my Concurring Opinion (paras. 15 and 23) in the case of Bámaca Velásquez versus Guatemala (merits, Judgment of 11.25.2000), my Concurring Opinion (paras. 24-33) in the case of the Moiwana Community versus Suriname (Judgment of 06.15.2005), in my Concurring Opinion (paras. 2-15) in the pioneering and historical Advisory n. 16 (of 10.01.1999) on The Right to Information on Consular Assistance. In the Framework of the Guarantees of the Due Process of Law, among others. More recently, in General Course on Public International Law, which I offered in 2005 at the Academy of International Law of La Haya, 1 I allowed myself to dedicate a full chapter 2 to this subject that I consider of a fundamental relevance. 3. I took to writing this chapter and including it at the beginning of my mentioned General Course, not only to highlight the importance I give the matter, but also to spread upon the record my position, frankly contrary both to the positivist pretension of visualizing and interpreting the legal system regardless of time, as well as the “realistic” pretension of taking into consideration the facts of the present regardless of their temporary dimension, attributing to them an alleged inevitableness and an improvable perpetuity. Therefore, positivism and realism, when they abstract the ineluctable relationship between time and Law, they become ineluctable and pathetically subservient to power – which I consider unacceptable, when maintaining the primacy of Law in any and all situation. 4. It is not my objective to reiterate in this Concurring Vote to the present Case of the Castro Castro Prison, my considerations presented on other occasions, including numerous of my Opinions in this Court, on time and Law, to which I will limit myself to referring to (supra). I proceed in the present Concurring Opinion, to add new personal reflections on time and Law, since the matter was effectively . A.A. Cançado Trindade, "International Law for Humankind: Towards a New Jus Gentium General Course on Public International Law", 316 Recueil des Cours de l'Académie de Droit International de la Haye (2005) (en prensa). 1 . Chapter II. And cf. also, on time and Law, A.A. Cançado Trindade, O Direito Internacional em um Mundo em Transformação, Rio de Janeiro, Edit. Renovar, 2002, pp. 3-8 and 1039-1109. 2