3 11. There is a considerable body of instruments or draft instruments that refer to the collective rights of indigenous peoples, as indicated above. The judgment in the Mayagna case alludes to them and, in my concurring opinion, I cited some. Likewise, there are numerous high-ranking provisions in domestic law (for example, the Constitutions of several countries of the hemisphere), which affirm the existence of these same rights, based on the pre-Colombian legal system and the specific relationship of the indigenous groups to the land they have owned – not without interferences arising from other ownership claims – and where they have led their lives and preserved ancient customs and beliefs. This specific relationship has characteristics that go beyond the mere possession or ownership of the land. 12. The status of these peoples and their property, which constitutes a timeless basis for the social relationships of a large part of the Americas, must be adequately protected. The liberal legislation of the nineteenth century did not do this; it militated in favor of individual property and denied or weakened the original rights of the American peoples. The legislation deriving from the social trend of law, enacted in the first half of the twentieth century, has attempted to do this, with relative success. This is the context within which the rights of members of the indigenous peoples, members of ancient communities, are examined. Their rights do not arise from recent laws, which merely recognize such rights. 13. I emphasize that this way of interpreting the Convention and the corresponding rulings of the Court, in no way disregards or diminishes the collective rights of the indigenous groups, fully included in international instruments and national laws that try to do justice to the original inhabitants of the hemisphere, victims of habitual plunder. To the contrary, they underscore the significant legal, ethical and historical value of these community rights and recognize that they are the source of individual rights and that the latter, based on the former or fed by them, are, in turn, human rights with the same ranking as any treaty-based rights. 14. I also referred to the Case of Cantos, as a precedent in delimiting individual and collective rights. In this context, the Court examined the participation of a natural person in the patrimony of a collective person, an issue regulated by civil and commercial law. I will merely recall that in its judgment in that case, the Court stated: “This Court considers that, although the figure of legal entities has not been expressly recognized by the American Convention, as it is in Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights, this does not mean that, in specific circumstances, an individual may not resort to the inter-American system for the protection of human rights to enforce his fundamental rights, even when they are encompassed in a legal figure or fiction created by the same system of law" (para. 29). B. REPARATION AND PRESERVATION OF CULTURE 15. The judgment of November 19, 2004, in the Case of the Plan de Sánchez Massacre was delivered based on the abovementioned judgment of April 29, which, in turn, took into consideration the State’s acknowledgement of international responsibility of April 23, 2004, admitted by the Court in an order of the same date. The judgment of November 19, which this opinion accompanies, orders certain reparations as compensation for the non-pecuniary damage resulting from the need to preserve the traditional culture of the victims and their descendants.