creative one, respectively, of the exercise of the international judicial function. I
consider it more appropriate to characterize them in another way, as the judicial selflimitation, which I consider completely inadequate for an international human rights
court, and the judicial impartiality, which I have defended for years within this Court,
in the search for the realization of justice. These different conceptualizations have
been reflected, throughout the years, in the Court’s work in matters of the
Interpretation of Judgments.
43.
I already referred to the extraordinary contribution, acknowledged
internationally, given by the Inter-American Court to the evolution of International
Human rights Law itself, through its Interpretation of the Judgment in the case of
Barrios Altos (supra). There is a sensible distance between the Court’s position of
judicial impartiality in the Interpretation of the Judgment in the case of Barrios Altos,
which has won it the international acknowledgment of the most lucid doctrine on
international law, and the restrictive predisposition that can be clearly concluded, v.g.,
from paragraphs 25-26 of the present Judgment of Interpretation in the case of the
Castro Castro Prison.23
44.
I allow myself to recall here another example of the Court’s jurisprudence. In
its Interpretation of a Judgment (of 10.01.1999) in the case of Blake versus
Guatemala, the Inter-American Court recalled the prevailing criterion in the
international jurisprudence in this regard, according to which the interpretation of a
judgment implies not only the precision of that decided by the Tribunal, but also the
determination of the scope, the sense, and the purpose of the decision, pursuant to
the considerations that motivated it (para. 18).
45.
The Court considered that, even though they were “clear in the scope and
content” of that stated in their previous Judgment on reparations in the case of Blake,
it was “useful to explain the matters presented by the State in order to dispel any
doubt” in this sense.24 In effect, even though the judgment of a tribunal is final and
not susceptible to modifications, nothing prevents its purpose from provoking any
matter in the form of a request presented to the tribunal for the interpretation of said
judgment.25
46.
"Sense" and "scope" are not, in my opinion, suitable for a dogmatic or
restrictive predetermination, which leads to a single, standard conclusion. On the
contrary, the “sense” is the understanding or reason formed when distinguishing
something, regarding which an opinion or interpretation is issued.26 The "scope" refers
.
Once the Court declared the admissibility of all the requests for interpretation
(both of the appellant State and the legal representatives – different to the common
intervener – of a group of victims), it had to clarify all the matters presented to it,
instead of formulating the warning – without cost -, in the cas d'espèce – of the
mentioned paragraphs 25-26 of the present Judgment.
23
.
24
Reimbursement of expenses in the processing of the case.
.
S. Rosenne, Interpretation, Revision and Other Recourse from International
Judgments and Awards, Leiden, Nijhoff (Series "International Litigation in Practice",
vol. I), 2007, pp. 1 and 4-5.
25
.
Cf. Real Academia Española, Diccionario de la Lengua Española, 21a.
ed., volume I, Madrid, R.A.E., 1992, p. 1864; Diccionario Océano de la Lengua
Española, Barcelona, Ed. Océano, [2003], pp. 1023-1024; G. Gómez de Silva, Breve
Diccionario Etimológico de la Lengua Española, México, El Colegio de México/Fondo de
Cultura Económica, 1996 [5a. reimpr.], p. 634.
26