3 "Le temps exerce en effet une influence puissante sur l'établissement et la consolidation des situations juridiques (...). D'abord la longueur du temps dépend des matières. (...) Un deuxième élément doit être pris en considération, nous serions tentés de l'appeler `la densité' du temps. Le temps des hommes n'est pas le temps des astres. Ce qui fait le temps des hommes, c'est la densité des événements réels ou des événements éventuels qui auraient pu y trouver place. Et ce qui fait la densité du temps humain aprécié sur le plan juridique, c'est la densité, la multitude des actes juridiques qui y ont trouvé ou qui y auraient pu trouver 7 place . . 6. The time of human beings certainly is not the time of the stars, in more 8 that one sense. The time of the stars, - I would venture to add, - besides being an unfathomable mystery which has always accompanied human existence from the beginning until its end, is indifferent to legal solutions devised by the human mind; and the time of human beings, applied to their legal solutions as an element which integrates them, not seldom leads to situations which defy their own legal logic, - as illustrated by the present Blake case. One specific aspect, however, appears to suggest a sole point of contact, or common denominator, between them: the time of the stars is inexorable; the time of human beings, albeit only conventional, is, like that of the stars, implacable, - as also demonstrated by the present Blake case. III. Forced Disappearance as a Continuing or Permanent Crime. 7. On the one hand, we are here before a proven case of forced disappearance of person, typified even in the Guatemalan Criminal Code in force (Article 201 ter as amended) as a continuing crime. In the same sense, the international norms of protection typify it as a "continuing or permanent" crime "while the fate or whereabouts of the victim is not established" (Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons of 1994, Article III); moreover, 9 they warn that it is a specific and autonomous crime , which constitutes a complex form of violation of human rights (with related criminal acts), and which thereby requires that it be understood and addressed pursuant to a necessarily integral approach (as it can be inferred from the preamble and Articles IV and II of that Convention). 8. On the other hand, inasmuch as Guatemala, as a State Party to the American Convention on Human Rights (since 25 May 1978), only accepted the jurisdiction of the Court in contentious matters on 09 March 1987, we are led, by 6. International Court of Justice, Temple of Preah Vihear case (Cambodia versus Thailand), ICJ Reports (1962), Pleadings, Oral Arguments, Documents, vol. II, pp. 203 and 205. [Translation: "Time exerts in fact a powerful influence in the establishment and the consolidation of juridical situations (...). First of all, the duration of the time depends on the matters. (...) A second element ought to be taken into account, we would be prepared to call it `the density' of time. The time of men is not the time of the stars. What makes the time of men, is the density of the real events or of the eventual events which may have occurred. And what makes the density of the human time as regarded at the juridical level, is the density, the multitude of the juridical acts that have occurred or that could have occurred".] 7. Not only to establish the aquiescence of the State and its legal effects, as Reuter intended in that case. 8. As expressly pointed out in the travaux préparatoires of the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons; cf. CIDH, Informe Anual de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos 1987-1988, p. 365.