“were crammed into improvised concentration camps, such as the Estadio Nacional de Santiago (National Stadium of Santiago). Over 1,000 people were summarily executed (…). The Chilean military introduced a new tactic for Latin America: they would bury the prisoners’ bodies in secret mass graves or “common pits,” and would tell prisoners' families that their relatives had never been kept in their custody. (…) Since the enemy had international reach, Pinochet masterminded an international scheme to defeat it. To this end, he forged a secret alliance with the military governments of Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina. (…) The initiative was named “Operation Condor” (...). Almost invariably, the victims of Operation Condor 12 disappeared.” 15. Seeking to grant amnesty to those responsible for the aforesaid State crimes is an affront to the Rule of Law in a democratic society. As I stated in my Concurring Opinion in the Case of Barrios Altos, “The so-called self-amnesties are, in sum, an inadmissible affront to the right to truth and the right to justice (starting with the very access to justice). They are manifestly incompatible with the general -indissociable- obligations of the States Parties to the American Convention to respect and to ensure respect for the human rights protected by it, securing their free and full exercise (pursuant to the provisions of Article 1(1) of the Convention), as well as to harmonize their domestic law with the international norms of protection (pursuant to the provisions of Article 2 of the Convention). Moreover, they affect the rights protected by the Convention, in particular the rights to judicial guarantees (Article 8) and to judicial protection (Article 25). (...) There is another point which seems to me even graver in relation to the distorted figure -an offense against the Rule of Law itself- of the so-called laws of selfamnesty. As the facts of this Case of Barrios Altos disclose -in leading the Court to declare, in accordance with the recognition of international liability made by the respondent State, the violations of the rights to life13 and to personal integrity,14- such laws do affect non-derogable rights -the minimum universally recognized- which fall within the scope of jus cogens.” (paras. 5 and 10). 16. And I concluded my Concurring Opinion by stating that: “No State can be considered to rest above the Law, whose norms have as ultimate addressees the human beings. (…) It should be stated and restated firmly, whenever necessary that in the domain of the International Law of Human Rights, the so-called ‘laws’ of self-amnesty are not truly laws: they are nothing but an aberration, an inadmissible affront to the juridical conscience of humanity.” (para. 26) II. Self-amnesties and the Obstruction and Denial of Justice: Extension of the Material Scope of Jus Cogens Prohibitions 17. Self-amnesties, although based on “legal” instruments such as statutes, decree laws and similar, are the very negation of Law and a truly legal aberration. The adoption and enactment of self-amnesties constitute, in my opinion, an additional violation of the American Convention on Human Rights. The tempus commisi delicti is that of the enactment of the self-amnesty in question, an additional 12 . J. Dinges, Operación Cóndor - Una Década de Terrorismo Internacional en el Cono Sur (Operation Condor - A Decade of International Terrorism in the Southern Cone), Santiago, Publ. B Chile, 2004, pp. 22-23. 13 . Article 4 of the American Convention. 14 . Article 5 of the American Convention.