the perpetrators of certain crimes, the power of the State is not unlimited, nor may the State resort to any means to attain its ends.” --Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on Terrorism and Human Rights (OEA/Ser.L/V/II.116, Doc. 5, rev. 1 corr., 22 October 2002) (paras. 87, 89), citing Neira Alegría Case, I/A Court H.R., Judgment of January 19, 1995 (paras. 74-75). ***** Because execution of the death penalty is irreversible, the strictest and most rigorous enforcement of judicial guarantees is required of the State so that those guarantees are not violated and a human life not arbitrarily taken as a result. --I/A Court H.R., Advisory Opinion OC-16/99, The right to information on consular assistance, in the framework of the guarantees of the due process of law, October 1, 1999 (para. 136). ***** [T]he Commission reiterates the fundamental significance of ensuring full and strict compliance with due process protections in trying individuals for capital crimes, from which there can be no derogation. The Commission has recognized previously that, due in part to its irrevocable and irreversible nature, the death penalty is a form of punishment that differs in substance as well as in degree in comparison with other means of punishment, and therefore warrants a particularly stringent need for reliability in determining whether death is the appropriate punishment in a given case…. Further, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recently noted the existence of an "internationally recognized principle whereby those States that still have the death penalty must, without exception, exercise the most rigorous control for observance of judicial guarantees in these cases," such that "[i]f the due process of law, with all its rights and guarantees, must be respected regardless of the circumstances, then its observance becomes all the more important when that supreme entitlement that every human rights treaty and declaration recognizes and protects is at stake: human life." --Case 12.243, Report Nº 52/01, Garza case, Annual Report of the IACHR 2000 (par. 100). 31