28. Universal human rights find support in the spirituality of all cultures and religions27, are rooted in the human spirit itself; as such, they are not the expression of a given culture (Western or any other), but rather of the universal juridical concience itself. All the aforementioned advances, due to this universal juridical conscience, have taken place amidst cultural diversity. Contrary to what the spokesmen of the so-called - and distorted - "cultural relativismo" preach, cultural manifestations (at least those which conform themselves with the universally accepted standards of treatment of the human being and of respecto for their dead) do not constitute obstacles to the prevalence of human rights, but quite on the contrary: the cultural substratum of the norms of protection of the human being much contributes to secure their effectiveness. Such cultural manifestations - such as that of respect for the dead in the persons of the living, titulaires of rights and duties - are like superposed stones with which is erected the great pyramid 28 of the universality of human rights. IV. The Prevalence of the Right to Truth, in Respect for the Dead and the Living. 29. Several peoples of Latin America have, in their recent history, known and suffered the scourge and cruelty of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, summary and arbitrary or extra-legal executions, and forced disappearances of persons29. The search for truth - as illustrated by the cases of forced disappearance of persons - constitutes the starting-point for the liberation as well as the protection of the human being; without truth (however unbearable it might come to be) one cannot be freed from the torment of uncertainty, and it is not possible either to exercise the protected rights. 30. In fact, the prevalence of the right to truth appears as a conditio sine qua non to render effective the right to judicial guarantees (Article 8 of the American Convention) and the right to judicial protection (Article 25 of the Convention), all reinforcing each other mutually, to the benefit of the close relatives of the disappeared person. The right to truth is thus endowed with an individual as well as a collective dimensions. 31. It has, in my understanding, a wider dimension than that which may prima facie be ensued from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. Beyond what is formulated in that provision30, which has inspired other provisions of the kind of distinct human rights treaties, the right to truth applies ultimately also as a sign of respect for the dead and the living. The hiding of the mortal remains of a disappeared person, in a flagrant lack of respect to them, 27 . Cf. [Various Authors,] Les droits de l'homme - bien universel ou fruit de la culture occidentale? (Colloquy of Chantilly/France, March 1997), Avignon, Institut R. Schuman pour l'Europe, 1999, pp. 49 and 24. 28 . To evoke an image quite proper to the rich maya culture. 29 . To which one may add contemporary atrocities and acts of genocide in other continents, such as the European (e.g., ex-Yugoslavia) and the African (e.g., Rwanda), - besides massive violations of human rights in the Middle-East and the Far East. 30 . According to which "everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers".