the victims of a massacre? Does the Court want evidence of a damage, of a nonpecuniary damage? How can it be proven if the Court has even experienced, under the circumstances of specific cases of grave violations to human rights affecting a larger group of people, difficulty in the conceptualization of said non-pecuniary damage? Does the Court want evidence of relationships (between the victims and their siblings)? Relationships are not proven, they are lived. Does the Court want evidence of the suffering (of the brothers and sisters of the victims)? Suffering is not proven, it is felt. Besides, in its constant jurisprudence, the Court has determined the consequences of damages of this kind, the non-pecuniary damage, through a judgment of equity;48 therefore, why should it demand additional evidence from the next of kin of the victims? It is unlikely that they will help, not even for practical effects. 42. If the Court wishes to insist on additional evidence, - the same as the criminal courts of domestic law, - I think it would be more correct for an international human rights tribunal to proceed to the shifting of the burden of proof49 to the State accused: it would correspond instead to the State accused to prove that any of the brothers or sisters of any of the victims does not have an “affective relationship” with the latter… But, even then, there is the question: would this be possible to prove? 43. International Human Rights Law is oriented towards the victims, towards their protection. In the present domain of protection of human beings, the procedural equality of the parts (égalité des armes/equality of arms) consists more in balancing the factual inequality between the State (“personalized”, throughout centuries, as holder of coercive means, by Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes, among others, and, in a specifically ill-fated manner and with disastrous consequences by Georg W.F. Hegel, as final repositories of human liberty), on one hand, and, on the other, the alleged victims (in their majority in a situation of great vulnerability and adversity, if not defenseless). 44. How can an international human rights tribunal such as this Court put upon the latter or their next of kin the onus probandi not only of the facts, but of feelings as well? How can it demand from the alleged victims or their next of kin the evidence of a damage that can be considered a non-pecuniary damage? And, even when, with a great effort of the imagination, this were possible, what purpose would it serve, if the determination of the non-pecuniary damage is normally done through a judgment of equity? 45. The inadmissibility of said burden of proof becomes even clearer in cases of grave violations of human rights: in said circumstance (v.g., in cases of massacres), this would be close to a true probatio diabolica,50 against which I have already stated . The recourse to equity in the pacific solution of international disputes has been wellknown in Public International Law for some time now; cf., v.g., Charles de Visscher, De l'équité dans le règlement arbitral ou judiciaire des litiges de Droit international public, Paris, Pédone, 1972, pp. 3-111; M. Akehurst, "Equity and General Principles of Law", 25 International and Comparative Law Quarterly (1976) pages 801-825; A. Herrero de la Fuente, La Equidad y los Principios Generales en el Derecho de Gentes, Valladolid, Universidad de Valladolid, 1973, pp. 976; Daniel Bardonnet, "Quelques observations sur le recours au règlement juridictionnel des différends interétatiques", in Theory of International Law at the Threshold of the 21st Century Essays in Honour of K. Skubiszewski (ed. J. Makarczyk), The Hague, Kluwer, 1996, pages 737752, esp. 751-752. 48 . Cf., on this matter, more than three decades ago, A.A. Cançado Trindade, "The Burden of Proof with Regard to Exhaustion of Local Remedies in International Law, 9 Revue des droits de l'homme/Human Rights Journal - Paris (1976) pages 81-121. 49 50 . For criticism of the latter, cf. my Concurring Opinion (paras. 20-23) in the Judgment (of