5 there are three elements in torture that are uncontentious and that constitute, consequently, jus cogens: (i) infliction, by act or omission, of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental; (ii) the intentional nature of the act, and (iii) the motive or purpose of the act to reach a certain goal.19 On the other hand, there are three elements that remain in contention and, thus, do not form part of jus cogens: (i) the list of purposes for which the act is committed; (ii) the requirement that the act be inflicted in connection with an armed conflict, and (iii) the requirement that the act be inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent and acquiescence of a state official.20 16. This reasoning leads me to maintain that the Court is not obliged to be guided by or apply either the definition of torture in the CIPST or that of the Convention against Torture; rather it should allow the concept of jus cogens to prevail, because this establishes the best protection for the victims of torture. I also recall that Article 16 of the CIPST establishes that this Convention “shall not limit the provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights, other Conventions on the subject, or the Statutes of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, with respect to the crime of torture,” so that interpreting torture in a manner that differs from that Convention does not constitute non-compliance with it but, to the contrary, its true application. 17. If the Court has independence to define torture and, thus, does not need to incorporate the participation, by act or omission, of a public official as an element of the concept of torture (and does not need to interpret the concept of acquiescence in its narrowest sense, because in this case – basing myself on the facts – I maintain that using the concept of acquiescence of the Committee against Torture, the State acquiesced), the only problem that must be examined is whether the State can be attributed with the fact that it has not complied with its obligation to safeguard the personal integrity of the victims from the possibility of torture. I need not repeat what the Court has stated in numerous judgments and reiterates in this: that the obligation to guarantee requires the duty to prevent. 18. The Judgment in this case establishes two moments at which the State failed to comply fully with this obligation. The first was before the disappearance of the victims and does not refer to the obligation to prevent the three victims from being abducted; that would be disproportionate. What could be claimed is that, as soon as the State was officially (not to mention unofficially) aware, in other words, at least as of the moment at which the National Human Rights Commission officially alerted it to the existence of a pattern of violence against women in Ciudad Juárez, there was an absence of policies designed to try and revert the situation. 19. The second moment, which is the one that interests me for the purposes of this opinion, is the lapse between the time the three victims disappeared and the State’s response to their disappearance; which was, according to the Judgment, extremely belated and even today insufficient. In paragraph 283 of the Judgment, the Court recognizes that the State “was aware that there was a real and imminent risk that the victims would be sexually abused, subjected to ill-treatment and killed,” and that, consequently, it “finds that, in this context, an obligation of strict due diligence arises in regard to reports of missing women, with respect to search operations during the first hours and days.” 19 Cf. Prosecutor v. Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovac and Zoran Vukovic, supra note 14, para. 483. 20 484. Cf. Prosecutor v. Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovac and Zoran Vukovic, supra note 14, para.