4 and legislative measures, in order to determine their compatibility with international human rights standards. 8 This has been achieved in the name of superior common values, embodied in the prevalence of the fundamental rights inherent in the human being. 12. This judgment of the Inter-American Court is framed in this noteworthy juridical and civilizing evolution. Even before Maritza Urrutia v. Guatemala, the Court had ruled on the violation of the right to psychological integrity (in Loayza Tamayo v. Peru, Judgment of September 17, 1997, paras. 57-58) and on “psychological torture” (in Cantoral Benavides v. Peru, Judgment of August 18, 2000, para. 102). In the instant case, the Court once again rules on the latter, amidst its categorical affirmation of the absolute prohibition of torture in all its forms. In the apt words of the Court: “An international juridical regime of absolute prohibition of all forms of torture, both physical and psychological, has been developed and, with regard to the latter, it has been recognized that the threat or real danger of subjecting a person to physical harm produces, under determined circumstances, such a degree of moral anguish that it may be considered ‘psychological torture.’ The absolute prohibition of torture, in all its forms, is today part of international jus cogens” (para. 92). There is no alternative to this juridical development motivated by the human conscience; if this were not so, we would return to barbarism. Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade Judge Manuel E. Ventura-Robles Secretary 8 A. Cassese, op. cit. supra n. (2), pp. 1 and 131-133.