under the American Convention. This is why I cannot accept setbacks in said jurisprudential construction, such as that occurred in the present case of La Cantuta (cf. supra), in what refers to the determination of the non-pecuniary damage. The centralization of the victims does not refer only to the direct victims, but also to their next of kin as injured parties. The centralization of the victims is not limited to the determinations of the Court with regard to the merits of the cases solved by it; instead it refers also to the decisions with regard to the reparations. 63. When, more than half a decade ago, I presented to the Organization of American States (in May 2001), the document I prepared on behalf of the InterAmerican Court, titled "Foundations for a Protocol Project to the American Convention on Human Rights in order to Strengthen its Protection Mechanism,” I invoked the expression “injured party” included in Article 63(1) of the American Convention in order to precise the role of the “injured” – definitely different to that of the InterAmerican Commission of Human Rights – as bearer of rights and a true petitioner before the Inter-American Court.57 Here, in the context of the present Interpretation of Judgment in the case of La Cantuta, I once again invoke the expression in order to offer precision to the expanded notion of victim – and even to that of direct victim, lato sensu (cf. infra) – under the American Convention. 64. Throughout the years of my participation as Judge of this Court, I have always emphasized the centralization of the victims lato sensu, and the assessment of their suffering, within the task of protecting the rights of human beings (para. 39, supra). Said centralization is ineludible and particularly eloquent in the cases of grave violations to human rights, such as those of the recent cases of massacres known by this Court. The centralization of the victims lato sensu and of the assessment of their suffering by the Court has been displayed, in an eloquent manner, in its Judgments on the massacres of Barrios Altos v. Peru (of 03.14.2001), of Caracazo v. Venezuela (reparations of 08.29.2002)] of Plan de Sánchez v. Guatemala (of 04.29.2004), of the 19 Tradesmen v. Colombia (of 07.05.2004), of Mapiripán v. Colombia (of 09.17.2005), of the Moiwana Community v. Suriname (of 06.15.2005), of Ituango v. Colombia (of 07.01.2006), of Montero Aranguren et al. v. Venezuela (Detention Center of Catia, of 07.05.2006),58 among others. 65. To these we can add the recent Judgments of the Court in the massacres of the Castro Castro Prison v. Peru (of 11.25.2006) and of La Cantuta v. Peru (of 11.29.2006), without, in my opinion, there being any reason for the Court to adopt a more restrictive criterion with regard to the granting of compensation for moral or non-pecuniary damage to the next of kin of the fatal victims (cf. supra), also direct victims lato sensu. As I have previously stated, since the cases of Blake v. Guatemala [merits and reparations, 1998 and 1999] and Bámaca Velásquez v. Guatemala [merits and reparations, 2000-2002), followed, among others, by the cases of the "Street Children " (Villagrán Morales et al.) v. Guatemala [reparations, 2001], and of Bulacio v. Argentina [2003], followed by others, the Court has welcomed my reasoning in the sense of giving legal acknowledgement to the expansion of the notion of victim. 66. The Court has correctly considered as injured parties not only the direct victims of the violation of the right to life (the tortured and executed or missing victims), but . A.A. Cançado Trindade, Bases para un Proyecto de Protocolo a la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos, para Fortalecer Su Mecanismo de Protección, 2a. ed., tomo II, San José de Costa Rica, Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, 2003, pages 42 y 51. 57 . Or even in a case of a planned murder in the highest level of State power, and executed by order of the latter, as in the case of Myrna Mack Chang v. Guatemala (Judgment of 11.25.2003). 58