2 evolution of contemporary international law; the establishment of an international criminal jurisdiction is seen nowadays as an element that strengthens international law, overcoming basic shortcomings of the past in relation to the inability to prosecute and sanction perpetrators of crimes against humanity.3 These advances in our times are due to the intensification of the clamor of all humanity – to the universal juridical conscience as the ultimate material source of all law – against the atrocities that, in recent decades, have made victims of millions of human beings throughout the world – atrocities that cannot be tolerated and that must be combated with determination. 8. We must turn our attention to the superior universal values underlying the whole issue of the recent creation of an international criminal jurisdiction with a permanent seat. The materialization of the international criminal responsibility of the individual (alongside the responsibility of the State), and the current process of criminalization of grave violations of human rights and humanitarian law constitute elements of crucial importance to combat impunity and for the treatment that should be accorded to past violations, in order to safeguard human rights. II. The context of State terrorism: ‘Operation Condor’ 9. Despite the gravity of the facts of the instant case, all the details of “Operation Condor” (in the framework of which the Case of Goiburú et al. is situated) have not been sufficiently clarified to date (cf. infra). Under this Operation, the security forces of the States of the Southern Cone coordinated, at the highest level of command, to detain illegally or arbitrarily, abduct, torture, murder or disappear thousands of persons. Although some details of this Operation remain vague even today, as one report on the matter indicates: “[…] There is sufficient and irrefutable evidence that State terrorism was practiced on an international scale. The documentation found and the testimonies of several of the agents involved reveal the complicity of the Paraguayan Government and police with the brutal repression exercised by the dictatorships in Argentina and Chile, as well as those of Brazil and Bolivia. It also shows how General Augusto Pinochet protected the practice of State terrorism within and outside his country. There is evidence that both Pinochet and Stroessner paid special attention to strengthening and coordinating their security services and, on several occasions, they met for this purpose.”4 10. Indeed, the historic Final Reports of both the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (of Chile, 1991, the so-called Rettig Report) and the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (of Argentina, 1984) confirm the existence of the coordinated repression carried out by the secret services of the countries of the Southern Cone that became known as “Operation Condor.” The first Final Report, of the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation of Chile, documents the international’ et sur l'évolution de la responsabilité internationale de l'État”, in Mélanges offerts à P. Reuter Le droit international: unité et diversité, Paris, Pédone, 1981, pp. 315-326; L.C. Green, “Crimes under the I.L.C. 1991 Draft Code”, 24 Israel Yearbook on Human Rights (1994) pp. 19-39. 3 . As was to be expected, the travaux préparatoires of the Statute of the permanent International Criminal Court, adopted at the 1998 Rome Conference, in parallel to State responsibility, contributed to the prompt acknowledgement of individual international criminal responsibility within the sphere of the present and future application of the Statute – which represents a major doctrinal advance in the fight against impunity for the most serious international crimes. 4 . E. Cuya, op. cit. infra n. 126, p. 6.