17 (Judgment of 30.11.2001), the Court ordered reparations in terms of educational benefits and payment of health service expenses; in the Durand and Ugarte versus Peru case (Judgment of 03.12.2001), the Court once again ordered payment of health services or expenses and psychological support. Said reparations for damages are in fact both compensatory and punitive; “punitive damages,” thus understood, actually have already been applied, for a long time, in the domain of international human rights protection –which makes us recall the phrase by Molière’s famous character, Monsieur Jourdain, qui parlait la prose sans le savoir...61 In evolving contemporary international law, “punitive damages” lato sensu62 (beyond the merely pecuniary meaning inappropriately given to them) can be an appropriate response or reaction of the juridical order against a crime of State.63 53. In conclusion, the facts in the instant case, Myrna Mack Chang versus Guatemala, demonstrate that crimes of State do exist. The facts in the instant case indicate that most contemporary international juridical doctrine is mistaken in seeking to avoid the issue. While the expression “crime of State” may seem objectionable to many international jurists (especially those petrified by the specter of State sovereignty) because it suggests an inadequate analogy with juridical categories of domestic criminal law, this does not mean that crimes of State do not exist. The facts in the instant case are eloquent evidence that they do exist. Even if another name is sought for them,64 the existence of crimes of State does not cease for that reason. 54. Crimes of State are much more than a possibility; as the facts of the cas d'espèce show, they are a reality. As long as attempts to evade the issue continue, contemporary international juridical doctrine will continue to succumb to the specter of State sovereignty, and it will continue to hold back the evolution of the law of nations in our days. As long as its existence continues to be denied, the human person, the ultimate one entitled to its inherent rights, and prior and superior to the State, will be denied protection and exercise of said rights, first of all the right to justice; the human person will also be denied reparations for abridgments of those rights. 55. As long as its existence continues to be denied, the State –hostage to a deformed structure of repression and impunity- will be deprived of its principal aim, the realization of the common weal. As long as its existence continues to be denied, in the midst of an empty semantic imbroglio (which distracts attention from the central issue, which is the need to ensure that justice prevails), the Law itself will be deprived of its ultimate aim, which is precisely the realization of justice. As long as attempts to avoid the issue continue, treatment of the central chapter of the law of international responsibility of the State will continue to be unconvincing, in addition to being 61 . M. Jourdain: - "(...) Il y a plus de quarante ans que je dis de la prose, sans que j'en susse rien, et je vous suis le plus obligé du monde de m'avoir appris cela". Molière, Oeuvres Complètes (Le bourgeois gentilhomme, 1670, act II, scene V), Paris, Éd. Seuil, 1962, p. 515. 62 . It should not go unnoticed that, e.g., the Declaration adopted by the United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenofobia and Related Forms of Intolerance (Durban, 2001), when it foresaw measures or reparation, compensation, indemnification and others for human suffering and the “tragedies of the past” (paras. 98-106), and the respective Program of Action, in its provisions on reparations and indemnification (paras. 165-166), used a language that reveals affinities with the concept of “punitive damages” lato sensu. 63 . N.H.B. Jorgensen, The Responsibility of States for International Crimes, Oxford, University Press, 2003, pp. 231 and 280. 64 . Which would not avoid the skeptical exclamation of the legendary prince of Denmark: "-(...) What do you read, my lord? - Words, words, words". (W. Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, 1600, act II, scene 2).

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