International Court of Justice of 16 October 1975 on the Western Sahara, the Hague Court took into account the modus vivendi, the cultural practices of the nomad populations of the Western Sahara, in affirming the right of these latter to selfdetermination9. One of the elements, pointed out by the Tribunal, proper to the culture of the nomad tribes of the Western Sahara, was precisely the cult of the memory of the dead10. In sum, the respect for the dead is due in the persons of the living, titulaires of rights and duties. II. The Unity of the Human Kind in the Links between the Living and the Dead. 14. The International Law of Human Rights discloses an even wider horizon for the consideration of the question. In my understanding, what we conceive as the human kind comprises not only the living beings - titulaires of human rights, - but also the dead with their spiritual legacy. We all live in the time; likewise, legal norms are created, interpreted and applied in the time (and not independently of it, as the positivists mistakenly assumed). 15. In my view, the time - or rather, the passing of the time, - does not represent an element of separation, but rather of approximation and union, between the living and the dead, in the common journey of all towards the unknown. The knowledge and the preservation of the spiritual legacy of our predecessors constitute a means whereby the dead can communicate with the living11. Just as the living experience of a human comunidad develops with the continuous flux of thought and action of the individuals who compose it, there is likewise a spiritual dimension which is transmitted from an individual to another, from a generation to another, which precedes each human being and survives him, in the time. 16. by the not to opinio There is effectively a spiritual legacy from the dead to the living, apprehended human conscience. Likewise, in the domain of legal science, I cannot see how assert the existence of a universal juridical conscience (corresponding to the juris comunis), which constitutes, in my understanding, the material source 9 . The aforementioned Advisory Opinion was delivered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in answer to a request formulated by the General Assembly of the United Nations. The question concerned the territory of Western Sahara, over which Morocco and Mauritania claimed rights at the moment in which Spain intended to put an end to its administration of such territory. The ICJ pondered that, as the Western Sahara, still at the time of its colonization, was inhabited by populations socially and politically organized in nomad tribes, it could not, therefore, be considered as terra nullius. In spite of the claims of Morocco and Mauritania, the ICJ affirmed the right of the populations - even though nomad - of the Western Sahara to self-determination; this latter should be exercised "through the free and genuine expression of the will of the peoples of the Territory". ICJ Reports (1975) pp. 68 and 36, pars. 162 and 70. 10 . Significantly, in affirming the right of those nomad tribes to self-determination, the ICJ, - perhaps malgré elle-même, - took into account their modus vivendi, their cultural practices, such as the cultivation of certain lands (including with the concession of rights), the controlled access to the sources of water, and even the cemeteries in which numerous tribes met (ibid., p. 41, par. 87). This, in the aforementioned Advisory Opinion of the ICJ of 1975, the cult of the memory of the dead was taken into account as one of the elements integrating the culture of the nomad populations of the Western Sahara, titulaires of the right to self-determination of the peoples. 11 . Is is what I allowed myself to point out, - recalling in this sense a remark by Simone Weil in her book L'Enracinement (1949), - in my Concurring Opinion (par. 5) in the case of the Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian Origin in the Dominican Republic (Provisional Measures of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, of 18.08.2000).