CONCURRING OPINION OF THE JUDGE SERGIO GARCÍA RAMÍREZ REGARDING THE JUDGMENT OF THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE CASE OF THE MIGUEL CASTRO – CASTRO PRISON, OF NOVEMBER 25, 2006 1. In this Opinion I will refer to two matters analyzed by the Inter-American Court in the Judgment issued in the Case of Castro Castro (Peru), on November 25, 2006, which is, by the way, a symbolic date in the general commitment to fight any type of violence against women. One of these matters, which I will deal with first and in a more ample manner, corresponds to the application, by the Tribunal of the Inter-American Convention to Prevent, Punish, and Eradicate Violence against Women, of June 9, 1994, commonly known by the name of the community where it was signed: Convention of Belém do Pará. The other regarding the frequent, intense, and painful subject of life within a prison and the relationship that exists, as a result of a criminal persecution –-in ample terms--, between public power and individuals, criminally responsible or not, over which the first is exercised. APPLICATION OF THE CONVENTION OF BELÉM DO PARÁ 2. The protection of human rights requires instruments of a general and specific scope that, jointly, conform the “shield of protection” required by large sectors of the population. Evidently, the declarations and pacts in which the rights and liberties of human beings in general are stated and guaranteed, sometimes referred to as “man’s rights” –the oldest denomination—and currently, with greater frequency as “human or fundamental rights”, are not enough. If they were enough, in the sense that they refer to rights that we all share under the condition of human beings, and if the proclamation of equality and non-discrimination, which possess a universal nature was sufficient, it would not be necessary to have certain instruments of a more specific scope, referring to the rights and liberties of those large sectors of the population. 3. It has been necessary –even more so, indispensable— to have specific declarations and treaties, which deal with hypothesis of great qualitative and quantitative importance. The protection of women’s rights stands out, since they are vulnerable for different reasons, hounded by risks, restrictions, and breaches that have a characteristic identity and refer not only to conditions derived from biology, but also, and probably most important, from cultural circumstances that have not been opposed, suppressed, dissipated –and on occasions, not even moderated--, despite the effort made in this sense by successive generations. The requirement of specific measures of protection is observed and attended to both in the international realm and national orders. 4. This current has prevailed in America. When the establishment of a regimen for the protection of human rights, that included a specialized jurisdiction was presented at the Conference on the Problems of War and Peace (Conference of Chapultepec, Mexico, 1945), a proposal –which was not unusual—was presented so that the corresponding declarative –and perceptive—instrument include, explicitly, men and women. Thus, the president of the Uruguayan delegation in said meeting requested, in a speech given on February 22, 1945, the issuing of a “new Declaration on the Rights of Men and Women.” In synthesis, the relevance, and even the urgency, to protect that half of humanity that would normally remain – and normally remains—in the penumbra when transferring to realty the general declarations for the protection of human beings, with special references and figures