15 the most to improving their legal framework, i.e., precisely the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.47 35. It is rewarding for me to witness that, as described earlier herein, the provisions of the American Convention have gradually been given effet utile also in this regard —i.e., in the field of Provisional Measures of protection—, where a gap in the Inter-American human rights system persists and must be filled with haste, and which, in my opinion, could —and should— have already been filled some time ago. I will not cease to insist that the potential victims’ direct access to international justice (to which I have devoted myself so much in the past decades) is an imperative also in the realm of Provisional Measures of protection. This matter of the Araraquara penitentiary represents, from the perspective of the application of the relevant provisions of the American Convention on the subject, a small but encouraging step forward in that direction. Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade Judge Pablo Saavedra-Alessandri Secretary 47 . Cf. A.A. Cançado Trindade, "International Law for Humankind: Towards a New Jus Gentium", General Course on Public International Law”, Recueil des Cours de l'Académie de Droit International de La Haye (2005), (in print).