2 4. In abstaining from pronouncing on the matter, the Court failed to proceed, as it was incumbent upon it, to the examination or determination of the incompatibility of Article 54(2) and (3) in force of the Code of Military Justice of Venezuela with the general duties provided for in the American Convention of ensuring respect for the rights recognized therein (Article 1) and of adopting provisions of domestic law (legislative or other measures) as may be necessary to give effect to those rights (Article 2). I consider the Court fully competent to rule on this specific point, despite the allegation of non-application of the above-mentioned provisions of the Code of Military Justice in the cas d'espèce. 5. It was necessary to await many years for the possibility to be admitted of raising the question of the incompatibility of legislative measures and administrative practices with the international conventional obligations pertaining to human rights, in the context of concrete cases3 . The international case-law in the present domain, at both regional and global levels, has evolved to the point of admitting nowadays that an individual may, under certain circumstances, claim to be victim of a violation of human rights perpetrated by the simple existence of measures permitted by the legislation, without their having being applied to him4 . He may actually do so in face of the simple risk of being directly affected by a law5 , under the continuous threat represented by the maintenance in force of the impugned legislation6 . It is acknowledged nowadays that an individual may effectively challenge a law that has not yet been applied to his detriment, sufficing to that effect that such law be applicable in such a way that the risk or threat that he may suffer its effects is real, is something more than a simple theoretical possibility7 . 6. An understanding to the contrary would undermine the duty of prevention, upheld in the case-law of this Court. Precision has been given to the wide scope of this duty, which comprises all the measures, legislative and administrative and others, which promote the safeguard of human rights and ensure that the violations of these latter are effectively treated as unlawful acts bringing about sanctions on those responsible for them8 . Reparation, as a generic concept, encompasses also these elements, besides the indemnities due to the victims. Full reparation, which in the present context appears as the reaction of the juridical order of protection to the facts in breach of the guaranteed rights, has a wide scope. It includes, besides the restitutio in integrum (restoration of the previous situation of the victim, whenever possible) and the indemnities (in the light of the general principle of 3 As occurred, for example, in the Kjeldsen (1972) and Donnelly (1973) cases before the European Commission of Human Rights. 4 .European Court of Human Rights, Klass and Others case, Judgment of 06.09.1978, para. 34. 5 European Court of Human Rights, Marckx case, Judgment of 13.06.1979, para. 27; European Court of Human Rights, Johnston and Others case, Judgment of 18.12.1986, para. 42. 6 European Court of Human Rights, Dudgeon case, Judgment of 22.10.1981, paras. 41 and 63. In the case of De Jong, Baljet and van den Brink, the European Court referred to its jurisprudence constante ("wellestablished case-law") whereby the existence of a violation of the Convention was "conceivable even in the absence of detriment"; Judgment of 22.05.1984, para. 41. 7 Human Rights Committee (under the U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), case of Aumeeruddy- Cziffra and Others, Views of 09.04.1981, para. 9(2). Irrespective of the conclusions as to the determination of the facts in a case, one can hardly deny that a domestic law can, by its own existence, constitute a direct violation of the protected rights; Human Rights Committee, case of the Disabled and Handicapped Persons in Italy, Views of 10.04.1984, para. 6(2). 8 As pointed out by the Inter-American Court in the cases of Velásquez Rodríguez, Judgment of 29.07.1988, para. 175; and Godínez Cruz, Judgment of 20.01.1989, para. 185.