take place without taking measures to prevent it or to punish those responsible.”448 In certain circumstances, it may not even be necessary to show that a particular individual has suffered to prove a violation by the State; “subjecting a person to official, repressive bodies that practice torture and assassination with impunity is itself a breach of the duty to prevent violations of the rights to life and physical integrity of the person, even if that particular person is not tortured or assassinated, or if those facts cannot be proven in a concrete case.”449 The Inter-American Court has been more expansive than other international instances in its approach to the purposive element of torture, perhaps reflecting the wider definition of torture given in the IACPPT. In Gómez-Paquiyauri Brothers v Peru, the Court stated that, in situations of massive human rights violations, the purpose of the systematic use of torture is to intimidate the population, bringing all such cases within the scope of the Convention.451 Where acts of torture are repeated, they will also generally fulfil the purpose requirement. In Tibi v Ecuador, the Court found that “[t]he aim of repetitive execution of these violent acts was to diminish [the] physical and mental abilities [of the victim] and annul his personality for him to plead guilty of a crime.”452 Any acts that have been “planned and inflicted deliberately upon the victim to wear down his psychological resistance and force him to incriminate himself or to confess to certain illegal activities, or to subject him to other types of punishment, in addition to imprisonment itself ” can be classified as physical and psychological torture, so any ill-treatment following conviction would fulfil this criterion.453 Furthermore, even the threat of ill-treatment may reach the required level of severity, as “the threat or real danger of subjecting a person to physical harm Velásquez-Rodríguez v Honduras, IACHR (Series A) No. 4, judgement of 29 July 1982, §173; Godínez-Cruz v Honduras, IACHR (Series C) No. 5, judgement of 20 January 20 1989, §183. Velásquez-Rodríguez v Honduras (1982), op. cit., §175. 450 Servellón-García v Honduras, IACHR (Series C) No. 152, judgement of 21 September 2006, §107. 451 Gómez-Paquiyauri Brothers v Peru, IACHR (Series C) No. 110, jugement of 8 July 2004, §116. 452 Tibi v Ecuador (2004), op. cit., §148. 453 Ibid. §146. See also Cantoral-Benavides v Peru, IACHR (Series C) No. 69, judgement of 18 August 2000, §104. 3 The Inter-american Regional System Thus, in the Inter-American system, the requirement of intentionality may be fulfilled not only by State failure to respect a negative duty of abstaining from torture or conduct injurious to personal integrity, but also by a breach of the positive duty of diligence and ensuring rights. As the Court recently reiterated, international responsibility can therefore be created without strict intentionality on the part of a State agent or person acting in an official capacity.450 448 449 97