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gravity and urgency and when necessary to avoid irreparable damage to persons. This
implies, among other matters, that they should not be intended to replace the normal
procedure for processing the individual petitions they refer to before the IACHR, or to
remedy or compensate their defects or those that occur during the procedure; also that,
should such measures be granted, it is important that they be granted on a temporary basis
and, for the same reason, that the final decision on the petitions should, similarly, be
urgent.
6. Moreover, it is relevant to indicate that provisional measures also have a restricted nature,
in particular, as regards their effects. In other words, to the extent possible, it should be
ensured that they do not entail consequences that are unwanted and additional to the said
preventive and protective nature, such as those that could occur in this case if the measures
were used to facilitate actions or measures in the requested State designed to delay or even
evade the action of the courts with regard to offenses unrelated to human rights, such as, in
the case of the said requested extradition, the offenses of customs tax evasion and fraud,
because if this happened, the inter-American system for the protection of human rights
could be used or perceived as a mechanism to encourage, to obtain or to ensure impunity,
an objective that is entirely alien to the system and which would discredit it; a risk that it is
necessary, consequently, to try and avoid, notwithstanding the specific need to ensure also
that the extradition is not used to avoid compliance with human rights obligations.
7. In short, it is admissible to interpret and apply provisional measures as part of the
proceedings conducted before the CourtIDH and, in general, of the international legal
system. This means that their objectives of prevention and protection with regard to human
rights must be pursued while, at the same time, endeavoring to safeguard other juridical
rights protected by international law such as, in this case, in keeping with the above and as
an example, the right of both the petitioner or beneficiary and the requested State, within
the proceedings in which such measures are ordered, to justice being dispensed in a timely
manner and the said extradition process not being delayed unduly.
8. Consequently, the obligation to protect the right to life of the person whose extradition has
been requested, and the obligation to prevent the impunity from which this person could
benefit if he were not extradited should not be considered mutually exclusive in this case. In
other words, it should not be considered that, by ordering provisional measures, a choice
has been made between the application of the Pact of San José or the application of the
extradition treaty between Peru and the People’s Republic of China; but rather, that they
have been ordered interpreting the two treaties congruently.
9. In conclusion, the undersigned recognizes that the above observations with regard to
provisional measures are specifically reflected in the time limit established for the duration
of the provisional measures ordered.
Eduardo Vio Grossi
Judge
Pablo Saavedra Alessandri
Secretary