4 14. Distinctly, in the international contentieux of human rights, the power of a tribunal such as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to order provisional measures of protection aims basically at safeguarding the human rights set forth in the American Convention, in a situation of extreme gravity and urgency and in face of the probability or imminence of an irreparable damage to persons. Underlying the application of provisional measures of protection by the Inter-American Court are superior considerations of international ordre public, finding concrete expression in the protection ot the human being. 15. Besides the preventive dimension of this protection, such measures disclose the specificity of the International Law of Human Rights. In so far as the Inter-American Court is concerned, such considerations of ordre public extend themselves to the exercise of the advisory and contentious functions of the Tribunal in general, as well as to the provisional measures of protection in particular, which - ordered as they are by an international tribunal like the Inter-American Court - have a mandatory character. 16. It is precisely by virtue of the principle ut res magis valeat quam pereat that the correct application of the American Convention contributes to turn into reality the rights protected thereunder, which, in turn, serve a concrete purpose (effet utile, principle of effectiveness), that of the effective protection of human rights. Any interpretation to the contrary would undermine the fulfilment of the object and purpose of the American Convention. The provisional measures cannot be restrictively interpreted, and impose themselves by their own raison d'être, as true jurisdictional guarantees of a preventive character that they are. 17. In the present case James and Others, the provisional measures of protection ordered by the Court impose themselves, even more so when the situation of extreme gravity and urgency, as well as the probability or imminence of an irreparable damage to persons persist, as has been pointed out both by the Court, in its Resolution on Provisional Measures of 29.08.1998 (paragraph 12), and by the Commission, in its written document of today, 25.05.1999, submitted to the Court a couple of hours ago. 18. With these foundations, I vote in favour of the present decision of the Court to maintain the provisional measures of protection ordered in its Resolution of 29.08.1998, to the benefit of the persons mentioned in the resolutory point 2 of the present Resolution, amongst whom is Mr. Anthony Briggs, as well as to expand the provisional measures of protection ordered in its Resolution of 29.08.1998, to the benefit also of the persons mentioned in the resolutory point 2 of the present Resolution. Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade Judge Manuel E. Ventura Robles Secretary