18 53. I well recall that, half a decade ago, during the contentious proceedings before this Court in the Bámaca Velásquez versus Guatemala case (Merits, 2000), a point which was sigled out before the Tribunal was the central relevance attributed by the maya culture to securing a proper burial to the victim's mortal remains, disclosing the links uniting the living to their dead. On that occasion, in my Separate Opinion in the Court's Judgment of 25.11.2000 in that memorable case, I sustained that "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)"66. 54. but And the passing of the time, - I added, - does not represent an element of separation, "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 living67. 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. There is effectively a spiritual legacy from the dead to the living, apprehended by the human conscience. Likewise, in the domain of legal science, I cannot see how not to assert the existence of a universal juridical conscience (corresponding to the opinio juris comunis), which constitutes, in my understanding, the material source par excellence (beyond the formal sources) of the whole law of nations (droit des gens), responsible for the advances of the human kind not only at the juridical level but also at the spiritual one. What survives us is only the creation of our spirit, to the effect of elevating the human condition. This is how I conceive the legacy of the dead, from a perspective of human rights"68. 55. In the same Separate Opinion in the merits of the Bámaca Velásquez case, in addressing the links of solidarity between the living and their dead, I further pondered that "The respect to the mortal remains is also due to the spirit which animated in life the dead person, in connection moreover with the beliefs of the survivors as to the destiny post mortem of the person who died69. It cannot be . Paragraph 14, and cf. pars. 4-5. 66 . 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). 67 . Paragraphs 15-16. 68 . B. Py, op. cit. supra n. (8), pp. 94 and 77, and cf. pp. 7, 38, 47, 77 and 123. 69