4
before the Inter-American Court of 09 June 1998, it was Mrs. María Elena Loayza
Tamayo herself who, as the complainant party and as subject of the International
Law of Human Rights, with full international procedural capacity at the phase of
reparations, pointed out that she was aware that "the economic indemnization will
not repair the whole damage" suffered7.
12.
The international case-law in the matter of reparations is to be reoriented
and enriched with the approach and contribution proper to the International Law of
Human Rights. Hence the importance which we attribute to the recognition, in the
present Judgment of the Inter-American Court, of the damage to the project of life of
the victim8, as a first step in this direction and purpose. If there had been no
determination of the occurrence of the damage to the project of life, how could one
achieve the restitutio in integrum as a form of reparation? How could one proceed to
the rehabilitation of the victim as a form of reparation? How could one affirm in a
convincing way the guarantee of non-repetition of the harmful facts in the
framework of reparations?
13.
No answer could be given to those questions without determining the
occurrence of a damage to the project of life and establishing its consequences. We
think that these considerations gain greater importance in a paradigmatic case like
the present one, in which the victim is alive and, therefore, the restitutio in
integrum, as a form par excellence of reparation, is possible.
14.
As the juridical consequences of the violations of the conventional obligations
of protection have not been sufficiently examined or developed in doctrine, one is to
bear always in mind a basic principle of international law in the matter of
reparations: States have the obligation to put an end to those violations and to
remove their consequences9. Hence the importance of the restitutio in integrum,
particularly apt to that purpose, given the insufficiencies of indemnizations.
7.
Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, Transcripción de la Audiencia Pública Celebrada en
la Sede de la Corte el 09 de Junio de 1998 sobre las Reparaciones en el Caso Loayza Tamayo, p. 34, and
cf. pp. 60-61 (mimeographed, internal circulation).
8.
Paragraphs 143-153.
9.
This principle has received judicial recognition as from the well-known obiter dictum of the old
Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) in the Chorzów Factory case (Merits); cf. PCIJ, Series A, n.
17, 1928, p. 47. It has also received support in doctrine; cf., inter alii, Bin Cheng, General Principles of
Law as Applied by International Courts and Tribunals, Cambridge, University Press, 1994 (reprint), p. 233;
J.A. Pastor Ridruejo, La Jurisprudencia del Tribunal Internacional de La Haya -Sistematización y
Comentarios, Madrid, Ed. Rialp, 1962, p. 429; F.V. García-Amador, The Changing Law of International
Claims, vol. II, N.Y., Oceana Publs., 1984, p. 579; Roberto Ago, "[1973 Report on] State Responsibility",
reproduced in The International Law Commission's Draft Articles on State Responsibility (ed. S. Rosenne),
Dordrecht, Nijhoff, 1991, pp. 51-54. Of the Judgment itself of the PCIJ in the Chorzów Factory case (cit.
supra), it may be inferred that the duty of reparation is the indispensable complement of non-compliance
with a conventional obligation; cf., inter alii, P. Reuter, "Principes de Droit international public", 103
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