7 20. More important than its radical nature, as Beccaria has already indicated, is the certainty or inevitability of the punishment, 24 which should be used to prevent crime and avoid impunity, without necessarily resorting to cruel and inhuman methods (for humanitarian reasons, such as the “modification of punishments”, as well as judicial reasons, such as the limits of the “social contract”). Indeed, the retributive theory seems to assume, erroneously, that the only possible equivalent to death is death itself, forgetting that the State has the ability to impose other punishments; it is undeniable that “violence generates violence in a chain without end” and also in criminal matters, it is necessary to search for “a break in this chain.” 25 In the poignant reflection by Karl Jaspers, moderation, in general, “creates a space for reflection, for examination, for clarification and also through it a more clear consciousness of the permanent significance of violence itself.” 26 II. Law and Death: The Premeditated Deprivation of Life 21. As I have previously reflected on time and the law in several of my other Concurring Opinions for the Inter-American Court, it would be difficult for me here to refrain from embarking on another central issue in the present case. In regard to the relation between the end of temporal human existence- death- and the law, allow me to weave together some brief comments on specific facets of death when it is directed, planned and carried out by man, and regulated by positive law. As I pointed out at the beginning of this Concurring Opinion, contrary to the beliefs of proponents of legal positivism, law is not wholly independent of other areas of human knowledge. When one tries to infringe upon or regulate the end of a human being’s life, and above all when it occurs through the application of an existing law, the deficiencies of the law are evident. 27 We are prisoners of our own conceptual universe; if, in the present context, we look to other areas of human knowledge, we still will not find satisfactory answers to the question at hand. 22. My Concurring Opinions in the Bámaca Velásquez v. Guatemala Case (Merits, 2000, paras. 6-23 and 40; and Reparations, 2002, paras. 2-7, 11-15, 18-19 and 2526), and in the “Street Children Case,” (Villagrán Morales et al. v. Guatemala, 24 Cf. C. Beccaria, De los Delitos y de las Penas, supra note 7, chapter 28, p. 83. This same argument, in the sense that “the real deterrent is not the level of punishment, but its inevitability,” has been, in our times, invoked by the Italian Delegation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in the debates of 1997-1998, since the adoption of resolution 1997/12 of April 4, 1997, presented and cosponsored by forty-five other countries, proposing the suspension of the execution of death sentences with the aim of complete abolition. Cf. R. Toscano, “The United Nations and the Abolition of the Death Penalty,” in The Death Penalty – Abolition in Europe, Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 1999, pp. 95-99 and 101. 25 N. Bobbio, El Tiempo de los Derechos, Madrid, Editorial Sistema, 1991, pp. 222, 230-231, 234, and 241 (Translation by the Secretariat). 26 K. Jaspers, El Problema de la Culpa, Barcelona, Editorial Piados, 1998 (new edition) p.77 (Translation by the Secretariat of the Court). 27 In reality, the final frontier of human existence – death – has always presented questions and challenges for all jurists, which are intensified by the transformation of cultural models and advances in scientific and technological knowledge. A great responsibility therefore falls on jurists to not merely limit themselves to the norms of positive law, but rather to also be cognizant of contemporary value systems and the evolution of human knowledge. Cf. S Rodotá, “Law and Moral Dilemmas Affecting Life and DeathA General Presentation of the Issues,” Law and Moral Dilemmas Affecting Life and Death (Proceeding of the Glasgow Colloquy on European Law, 1990), Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 1992, p.14, and cf., pp. 11 and 25.