CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE SERGIO GARCÍA-RAMÍREZ ON THE ORDER OF THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS ADOPTING PROVISIONAL MEASURES IN THE MATTER OF URSO BRANCO PRISON, OF JULY 7, 2004 Reacting to the grave situation of the inmates and other persons at the José Mario Alves Detention Center, known as the Urso Branco Prison in the city of Porto Velho, Rondônia state, Brazil, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, at the request of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, adopted a number of provisional measures in Orders of June 18, 2002, August 29, 2002, and April 22, 2004, in addition to letters that the Court sent to the State on March 6, 2003, May 1, 2003 and January 7, 2004. In the Court’s first Order adopting provisional measures in this case, it considered, among other serious situations requiring immediate attention, the frequency with which people had been murdered at that prison and the way in which those murders happened. The deaths in question occurred amidst terrible violence, and the prison authorities had lost any semblance of control over the situation. It was for that reason that the Court felt provisional measures had to be ordered, above all to save the lives and protect the personal safety of the inmates in Urso Branco Prison. Despite repeated urgings from the Inter-American Court, conditions at the prison have not changed. The most recent reports are that the acts of violence continue, with fatal consequences: murders and other extremely serious acts continue to be committed. Apparently, these have been the conditions for more than two years now, a period during which the Court issued its orders calling for provisional measures, after the Inter-American Commission had already requested precautionary measures. Given these events, the Court held a hearing at the seat of the Court in San José, Costa Rica, on June 28, 2004, to listen to reports from the representatives of the Urso Branco inmates, who have acted as the petitioners, and from the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights and the State. What the members of the Court learned during that hearing made it incumbent upon us to remain vigilant as to the certain and obvious danger that these kinds of events will continue inside the prison. The Court was also advised of the measures that the federal government is either adopting or plans to adopt in its area of competence, and the measures that the local prison authorities are taking, bearing in mind that under Brazil’s laws, local government –not the federal authorities- are in charge of the administration of prisons. At that same hearing, over which I presided, I pointed out that the judges had listened with interest to the plans to be implemented or already being implemented to change prison life. I noted that those initiatives and the proposals for coordination between authorities and petitioners, with other sectors participating, to move prison reform forward, were laudable. At the same time, I stressed the point – as did the participants in the hearing –even the State’s own representatives— that the prevailing situation at Urso Branco Prison was utterly unacceptable. After having called for provisional measures yet again in the Order to which this Concurring Opinion is affixed, the truly good news the Court would like to hear would be that the