20 64. In this judgment, after underscoring the “continuing or permanent nature” of the crime of forced disappearance of persons (para. 83) and the context of impunity that still prevails in violation of Articles 8(1) and 25 of the American Convention, the Court took a step forward with regard to the jus cogens prohibitions, in the direction that I have been advocating for some time. Indeed, in my separate opinion in Myrna Mack Chang v. Guatemala (judgment of November 25, 2003), I sustained that, faced with the existence of a State crime, the right to justice is essential; in other words, the right to a legal system that effectively safeguards fundamental human rights (paras. 9-55). 65. I believe that this is an essential requirement of jus cogens, particularly when it has been proved that the State itself has planned (at the most senior level), and massively and systematically perpetrated crimes, making victims of individuals subject to their jurisdiction (and even subject to the jurisdiction of other States, such as in “Operation Condor”). In my separate opinion in the recent case of the Pueblo Bello Massacre v. Colombia (judgment of January 31, 2006), I observed that: “The indivisibility between Articles 25 and 8 of the American Convention […] leads me to characterize access to justice, understood as the full realization of justice, as forming part of the sphere of jus cogens; in other words, that the inviolability of all the judicial rights established in Articles 25 and 8 considered together belongs to the sphere of jus cogens. There can be no doubt that the fundamental guarantees, common to international human rights law and international humanitarian law,70 have a universal vocation because they are applicable in any circumstance, constitute a peremptory right (belonging to jus cogens), and entail obligations erga omnes of protection” (para. 64).71 66. In the same separate opinion, I argued that, in the same way as the InterAmerican Court had expanded the substantial content of jus cogens in its historical Advisory Opinion No. 18 on the Juridical Status and Rights of Undocumented Migrants (of September 17, 2003), to include the basic principle of equality and nondiscrimination, the moment had come to take another qualitative leap forward in the development of its case law, by proceeding to the necessary and “continued expansion of the substantial content of jus cogens” by recognizing that this also encompasses the right of access to justice lato sensu; in other words, the right to full jurisdictional assistance, even to end impunity. 67. To my great satisfaction, after insisting on this fundamental issue within the Court for three years, during my period as a judge of the Court, it has finally given this new qualitative leap forward that I have been advocating, when it affirms in this judgment, based on the gravity of the facts of the cas d'espèce: “[..] Access to justice is a peremptory norm of international law and, as such, gives rise to obligations erga omnes for the States to adopt all necessary measures not to let such violations remain unpunished, either by exercising their jurisdiction to apply their domestic law and international law to prosecute and, when applicable, punish those responsible, or by collaborating with other States that do so or attempt to do so” (para. 131). 68. By correctly affirming that the right for justice to be done is a peremptory norm of jus cogens, I consider that the Court has shown that there are reasons to continue hoping: because, in the end, sooner or later, even in the face of the most 70 . law. E.g. Article 75 of Protocol I (1977) to the 1949 Geneva Conventions on international humanitarian 71 And cf. paras. 60-62 of the same separate opinion. .