58. In the case of Bámaca Velásquez, the Court found it “reasonable to presume that as next of kin they should not have been indifferent to the loss of their brother," (para. 65(b)), and, therefore, it set in equity the reparation due to them for nonpecuniary damages (para. 66). The clarifications obiter dicta of the Court in the mentioned cases of the “White Van” (Paniagua Morales et al.) and of Bámaca Velásquez present the most reasonable criterion regarding the matters in question, the criterions most in agreement with the needs for protection under the American Convention. This is, in my opinion, the most lucid jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court on the matter in question, which, in my opinion, must be taken up again by the Court promptly, abandoning the restrictive, reactionary, and unsustainable criterion it adopted in this regard in the recent Judgment on merits in the case of La Cantuta. IV. Sensu: Centralization and Expansion of the Notion of Direct Victim Lato Considerations De Lege Ferenda. 59. I could not conclude this Concurring Opinion without adding any brief considerations de lege ferenda on a matter that has occupied my reflections for many years, that is, that of the centralization and expansion of the notion of victim under the American Convention of Human Rights. It would not be an exaggeration to weigh in that said notion in evolution constitutes an open legal category – which has responded to the recurrent grave violation of human rights, submitted to the knowledge of the Court in recent years. In this sense, the Court, when facing the cases of massacres recently brought before it, has sometimes decided to leave the list of victims open (for future additions, based on the factual complexities of the cases in question), - instead of “closing” the list in the light of a static and dogmatic categorization of the condition of victim. 60. Therefore, the Court has acted, in this sense, correctly and as long as the possible appearance of additional victims naturally has a direct relationship with the constant facts described in the petitions originally presented to the knowledge of the Court, This has provided a balance between the concomitant concerns in guaranteeing legal security in the search for justice within the complex circumstances of this kind of cases, massacres or grave violations, affecting a greater circle of people. This has been an promising development, which, in my opinion, has served the needs of protection under the American Convention, in circumstances never foreseen by the writers of the latter. 61. In the end, human evil has no limits, and the reaction of the Law must be felt promptly, taking into account the gravity of the violations to the rights protected by the American Convention. Just like the notion of direct victim is, in my opinion, in constant evolution and expansion (cf. supra), the same thing happens with the concept of injured party under the American Convention, especially having present the duty of reparation. The concept of “injured party” (Article 63(1) of the American Convention), even though prima facie more ample, corresponds in the end, in my opinion, to the concept itself of victim lato sensu (covering the direct, indirect, and possible victims), as I stated two decades ago in a course I gave in the International Law Academy of the Hague.56 62. In synthesis, for me the injured party corresponds to the ample notion of victim, according to the jurisprudential construction of the Inter-American Court, . A.A. Cançado Trindade, "Co-Existence and Co-Ordination of Mechanisms of International Protection of Human Rights (At Global and Regional Levels)", 202 Recueil des Cours de l'Académie de Droit International de La Haye (1987), cap. XI, pp. 243-299. 56

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