5 particularities of each concrete case, and evaluating the consequences,” 17 which is an inherent attribute of the judicial process. 13. In its Judgment on the merits in the Suárez Rosero v. Ecuador Case (1997), the Inter-American Court established, inter alia, that a certain provision of the Ecuadorian Penal Code constituted a per se violation of Article 2 of the American Convention, independently of whether or not it was applied in the particular case (para. 98). Later, in its Judgment on the merits in “The Last Temptation of Christ” (Olmedo Bustos et al. v. Chile Merits, 2001), the Inter-American Court made clear that the mere existence and applicability of a norm of domestic law (whether constitutional or other) can per se compromise the State responsibility under a human rights treaty (para. 72). 14. In my Dissenting Opinion in the Genie Lacayo v. Nicaragua Case (Application for judicial review of the Judgment, 1997) 18, I expressed my understanding in the sense that the very existence of a norm of internal law “legitimises the victims of the violations of the rights protected by the American Convention to require its compatibility with the provisions of the Convention, (…) without having to wait for further harm to be done” from the norm (para. 10). 19 In the present case, Hilaire, Constantine and Benjamin et al., this additional harm would result from carrying out the death sentences. 15. Indeed, in the present Judgment, the Court has correctly ordered, as a means to make reparations, 20 that the respondent State abstain from continuing to apply the aforementioned Act, reform it to the standards of international human rights law (para. 212) and in addition that it abstain from executing those sentenced to death (para. 215). These non-monetary reparations comply with the objective of making the effects of the violations of the American Convention committed by the State cease, in accordance with the findings of the Inter-American Court in the present Judgment. 16. Furthermore, in my Concurring Opinion in the Barrios Altos v. Perú Case (Merits, Judgment of March 14, 2001) I observed that a law can, by its very existence, constitute a source (fons et origo) of an illicit international act, beginning as from their own adoption (tempus commisi delicti), and irrespective of their subsequent application, they engage the international responsibility of the State. Their being in force creates per se a situation which affects in a continuing way non-derogable rights, which as I have already indicated, belong to the domain of jus cogens. Once established, by the adoption of such laws, the international responsibility of the State, this is under the duty to put an end to such situation in violation of the 17 Ibid. p. 217 (Translation by the Secretariat of the Court). 18 I/A Court H.R., Genie Lacayo Case. Application for judicial review of the Judgment of January 29, 1997. Order of the Court of September 13, 1997. Series C No. 45. 19 I also took the same position in my Dissenting Opinion (para. 21) in the Caballero Delgado and Santana v. Colombia Case (Reparations, 1997). For jurisprudence on the concept of the “potential victim,” cf. A.A. Cançado Trinidade, “Co-Existence and Co-Ordination of Mechanisms of International Protection of Human Rights (At Global and Regional Levels)”, p. 202 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International de La Haye (1987) pp. 271-283. 20 From the Latin repartio, derived from reparare, “prepare or arrange again.”