7 concrete cases. (...) The right of individual petition shelters, in fact, the last hope of those who did not find justice at national level. I would not refrain myself nor hesitate to add, - allowing myself the metaphor, - that the right of individual petition is undoubtedly the most luminous star in the universe of human rights.” (para. 35) The next step that needs to be taken, in the framework of the inter-American system for the protection of human rights, is –as I have argued for several years- to ensure evolution from locus standi in judicio to jus standi of the individuals before the InterAmerican Court itself, thus enhancing their full international juridical capacity.19 IV. The Reaction of Prohibition of Torture) Ratione Materiae Law (Absolute 21. The practice of torture, in all its perversion, is not limited to the physical injuries inflicted on the victim; it seeks to annihilate the victim’s identity and integrity. It causes chronic psychological disturbances that continue indefinitely, making the victim unable to continue living normally as before. It worsens the victim’s vulnerability, causes nightmares, generates a loss of trust in others, hypertension, and depression. Several expert opinions rendered before this Court in various cases in recent years have asserted this unanimously. A person tortured in prison loses the spatial dimension and even that of time itself. 22. Furthermore, the practice of torture (whether to obtain a confession or information or to cause social fear) generates a disintegrating emotional burden that is transmitted to the next of kin of the victim, who in turn project it toward the persons they live with. The widespread practice of torture, even though it takes place within jails, ultimately contaminates all the social fabric. The practice of torture has sequels not only for its victims, but also for broad sectors of the social milieu affected by it. Torture generates psychosocial damage and, under certain circumstances, it can lead to actual social breakdown. 23. Thus, I find contemporary attempts by those who exercise power and their co-opted subservients to play down the prohibition of torture under certain circumstances, such as combating drug trafficking and the so-called “war on terrorism”20 truly dreadful. At the appropriate time, in the recent Judgment in the case of the Gómez Paquiyauri brothers versus Peru (of 08.07.2004, paras. 111-112), 19 . On this point, see A.A. Cançado Trindade, El Acceso Directo del Individuo a los Tribunales Internacionales de Derechos Humanos, Bilbao/Spain, Universidad de Deusto, 2001, pp. 9-104; A.A. Cançado Trindade, Bases para un Proyecto de Protocolo a la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos, para Fortalecer Su Mecanismo de Protección, vol. II, 2d. ed., San Jose, Costa Rica, InterAmerican Court of Human Rights, 2003, pp. 1-64. 20 . For this, there are international conventions that must be applied to combat those wrongs under the Law. Said attempts (of the self-proclaimed “realists”) set aside more than a century of progress of the Law, and they show the way back to savagery. As Jean Pictet pointed out quite appropriately in 1966, in a visionary –if not prophetic- manner, “it would be a disastrously regressive step for humanity to attempt to struggle against terrorism with its very weapons.” J. Pictet, The Principles of International Humanitarian Law, Geneva, ICRC, 1966, p. 36. – For a recent example of the current and alarming deconstruction of the Law (even in the field of habeas corpus, the due process of law and the presumption of innocence), in the midst of the apparent indifference or unawareness of the juridical circles in so many countries, see: "Antiterrorisme: une cour de Londres légitime des `preuves' obtenues sous la torture", in Le Monde, Paris, 14.08.2004 (in connection with the “evidence” obtained in the interrogations of ten foreign detainees at the United States base in Guantánamo, and derogation by the United Kingdom of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights).