lucid contemporary legal authors, even in relation to “self-amnesties,” as noted as follows: “The right of access to justice is expressed in human rights treaties in the 20 interrelated provisions for the right to a hearing and the right to an effective remedy .” 21. Ultimately, self-amnesties violate the right to know the truth and the right to justice. They callously disregard the terrible suffering of the victims and hinder the right to appropriate reparations. Their vicious effects, in my view, permeate the whole social body, with the ensuing loss of faith in human justice and true values and a perverse distortion of the purpose of the State. Originally created to serve the common good, the State becomes an entity that exterminates members of certain sectors of the population (the most precious constituent element of the State itself, its human substratum) with total impunity. From an entity designed to serve the common good, it becomes an entity responsible for truly criminal practices, undeniable State crimes. 22. It is clear from this Judgment rendered by the Court (para. 152) in the Case of Almonacid-Arellano that jus cogens transcends the law of treaties to include general International Law. And it could not be otherwise because of its conceptualization as peremptory law. The Inter-American Court significantly finds, in the cas d'espèce, that “The State may not invoke any domestic law or provision to exonerate itself from the Court's order to have a criminal court investigate and punish those responsible for Mr. Almonacid-Arellano’s death. The Chilean State may not apply Decree Law No. 2.191 again, on account of all the considerations presented in this Judgment, insofar as the State is under an obligation to set aside said Decree Law (supra para. 144). Additionally, the State may not invoke the statute of limitations, the non-retroactivity of criminal law or the principle of ne bis in idem to decline its duty to investigate and punish those responsible” (para. 151). 23. Hence operative paragraph No. 3 of this Judgment, which states that “insofar as it was intended to grant amnesty to those responsible for crimes against humanity, Decree Law No. 2191 is incompatible with the American Convention and, therefore, it has no legal effects.” Inasmuch as the aforesaid Decree Law has no legal effects in the light of the American Convention, and in order to put an end to the violation of Articles 1(1) and 2, as well as of Articles 25 and 8 as established by the Court (operative paragraph No. 2), the respondent State may not formally maintain said decree law in force as part of its domestic law. 24. As a member of this Court, I have always emphasized the interrelation, at the ontological and hermeneutical level, between Articles 25 and 8 of the American Convention (as in, inter alia, my Separate Opinion -paras. 28 to 65- in the Case of the Pueblo Bello Massacre v. Colombia, Judgment of January 31, 2006) in the conceptual construction of the right of access to justice (right to effective jurisdictional protection, the right to Law) as a jus cogens imperative. In addition, since my early years in this Court, I have consistently emphasized the interrelation of the general obligations contained in Articles 1(1) and 2 of the American Convention, for example, in my Dissenting Opinion (paras. 2-11) in the Case of El Amparo v. Venezuela, Judgment on Reparations of September 14, 1996. In another 20 . i.e. the rights enshrined in Articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention; cf. ibid., p. 282 (emphasis added), and cf. pp. 284 and 288-289.