entered the realm of jus cogens. The whole legal structure of national and international public order rests on it, and it permeates the whole legal system.50 In this regard, Article 24 of the American Convention prohibits de facto or de jure discrimination, not only with regard to the rights recognized in this instrument, but with regard to all the laws adopted by the State and to their application. In other words, it does not merely repeat the provisions of Article 1(1) of this instrument as regards the obligation of State to respect and ensure the rights recognized in this treaty without discrimination, but it establishes a right that also entails the State’s obligation to respect and ensure the principle of equality and non-discrimination in the safeguard of other rights and in all the domestic laws that it adopts, because it protects the right to “equal protection of the law” so that it also prohibits discrimination resulting from any inequality derived from domestic law or its application.51 Article 1(1) of the American Convention proscribes discrimination, in general, and includes prohibited categories of discrimination. Taking into account the criteria developed previously, the Court established that the ethnic origin of an individual is a category protected by the American Convention. This also means that, under Article 24 of this instrument, unequal treatment based on ethnic origin under domestic law or its application is also prohibited.52 35. In the following paragraphs, we analyze the criminal judgments convicting the victims that we consider contain a language and reasoning that reveal that what is involved is not the application of the presumption of the terrorist intent defined in the Counter-terrorism Act in force at the time; rather, it is verified that these judgments contain expressions or reasoning based on negative ethnic stereotypes and prejudices and that this constitutes a violation of the guarantee of judicial impartiality. A) The criminal judgment convicting Messrs. Norín and Pichún 36. When analyzing the elements of the offense in the thirteenth considerandum of the criminal judgment that convicted the Lonkos Segundo Aniceto Norín Catrimán and Pascual Huentequeo Pichún Paillalao as perpetrators of the offense of threat of terrorist arson, the criminal court inferred the terrorist intent from stereotypes and prejudices concerning the violence of the Mapuche land claims and from witness statements concerning their “feeling of fear” resulting from acts other than those for which the victims were tried in those proceedings. 53 Here, the domestic court accorded fundamental worth to evidence that did not refer to the acts that were being prosecuted in the criminal proceedings, but to other acts that, moreover, were not attributed to the accused, and no reference is made to whether criminal judgments had been delivered with regard to them. When assessing the terrorist intent, the court substantiated its decision on the testimony of individuals who were referring to other supposed acts, without analyzing whether or not these were true, as well as on newspaper articles, without referring to the sources on which these were based, but rather indicating that the said information “had not been disproved.”54 50 Para. 197 of the Judgment. Cf. Juridical Status and Rights of Undocumented Migrants. Advisory Opinion OC-18/03 of September 17, 2003. Series A No. 18, para. 101, and Case of the Xákmok Kásek Indigenous Community v. Paraguay. Merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of August 24, 2010, Series C No. 214, para. 269. 51 Para. 199 of the Judgment. 52 Para. 206 of the Judgment. 53 Cf. para. 227 of the Judgment. 54 When analyzing the elements of the definition (objective and subjective) of the offense of threat of terrorist arson, in the judgment delivered on September 27, 2003, by the Angol Oral Criminal Trial Court, in the thirteenth considerandum it was affirmed that: 12