5 violations, particularly those that affect fundamental juridical rights – life, integrity, liberty – most intensely are included as crimes or offenses in both national and international laws and, in addition to the said State responsibility, give rise to the specific criminal responsibility of the individual. 23. Consequently, I prefer to speak of “crime originating from (desde) the State” or “terrorism originating from (desde) the State”; in other words, crimes and terrorism that use the power, the means and instruments possessed by those that hold them, to break the law. In the same way, we can examine the expression “State policy,” which supposes a consensus, a social and political participation, a generalized or perhaps unanimous acceptance generated by democratic agreements, goals and purposes, and this is not and never has been a characteristic of criminal conspiracies and pacts among power groups, disguised as reasons of State, considerations of the common good, motives of unity and public peace, that would only have a moral meaning in a democratic society. 24. Consequently, when international attribution is invoked in relation to human rights issues (which is different from international criminal justice), reference is made to the State’s responsibility and when personal attribution is referred to, criminal or penal responsibility is examined. Even though international responsibility – and some aspects of national responsibility – concern the State, criminal responsibility corresponds to the individual authors or participants in the crime, under the concept of “criminals,” offenders” or “wrongdoers,” when this is decided in the respective judgment. In summary, it is the individual who commits the crime or offence; and, under certain circumstances, the State responds for him, without prejudice to the direct responsibility of the criminal participant in an offense. 25. Those who attempt to subvert the burden of denunciation and reproach deposited in the expressions “State crime,” “State terrorism” and “State policy,” which consist in the violation of the rights of the people, try to assign the crime, the terror or the execution of this policy to the account of the State and not of the individual perpetrators, even when, as I have said – and I emphasize this to avoid erroneous interpretations – the force of this expression, used in many cases, helps reveal the use of the State’s resources and mechanisms by officials and their subordinates to carry out their criminal activities. 26. This collusion, expressed in unlawful decisions and acts, has resulted in some of the gravest criminal acts every known. Essentially, it implies the official’s radical betrayal of the State’s purpose and the moral and legal commitments that he should honor and that, to the contrary, he ignores and dishonors. The definition of criminal conducts as “State crimes” has a credible purpose. However, this does not annul the need and convenience of rigorously defining the scope of each expression in function of the attributed responsibilities and the applicable sanctions, precisely to close the door to the constant temptation towards evasion or impunity. 27. It is troubling that those who should respond for extremely serious personal crimes may shield themselves behind the notion of State crime, terrorism or policy precisely to elude their individual responsibility and may attempt to justify or excuse themselves with the argument that they were only obeying criminal strategies that overcame and conditioned their own free will. Arguments exist based on “hierarchic obedience” and it could even be suggested, in a new application of the concept, that “everyone is guilty, except the criminal.”