SEPARATE OPINION BY JUDGE A.A. CANÇADO TRINDADE 1. I have concurred with my vote in the adoption, in this city of Brasilia, of the instant Judgment the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has just handed down in the Case of Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Community v. Paraguay. In view of the high relevance I attach to the subject-matter of the instant Jugment, I feel the obligation to put on record my personal thoughts regarding it, as the grounds for my position on the question decided by the Court, specifically as to the following aspects: a) two core matters: the wide scope of the fundamental right to life and the right to cultural identity; b) the historical roots to be found in the situation of want affecting the members of the Community; c) forced internal displacement as a matter of human rights; d) inadmissibility of the probatio diabolica; d) the question of the causal connection: the lack of due diligence by public authorities; e) the right to life and cultural identity; f) the suffering of the innocent and the central position of the abandoned victim as a subject of the International Law of Human Rights. The stage will then be set for my final reflexions, dealing with two points: the rights of indigenous peoples in the genesis and the development of the law of nations (jus gentium); and b) the great lesson to be learned from the instant case of the Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Community. I. Two Core Matters: The Wide Scope of the Fundamental Right to Life and The Right to Cultural Identity. 2. In the case of the “Street Children” (Villagrán-Morales et al.) v. Guatemala, (1999), its leading case on the wide dimension or scope of the fundamental right to life, which includes the conditions necessary for a life with dignity, the Court considered that "The right to life is a fundamental human right, and the exercise of this right is essential for the exercise of all other human rights. If it is not respected, all rights lack meaning. Owing to the fundamental nature of the right to life, restrictive approaches to it are inadmissible. In essence, the fundamental right to life includes, not only the right of every human being not to be deprived of his life arbitrarily, but also the right that he will not be prevented from having access to the conditions that guarantee a dignified existence. States have the obligation to guarantee the creation of the conditions required in order that violations of this basic right do not occur, and in particular, the duty to prevent its agents from violating it." 1 3. And, and in the case of Mayagna Awas Tingni Community v. Nicaragua (2001), its leading case on the communal property rights over ancestral land by members of indigenous communities, the Inter-American Court pointed out that for the members of such communities the relations to the land are not merely a matter of possession and production but a material and spiritual element which they must fully enjoy, even to preserve their cultural legacy and transmit it to future generations2. 1 . Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), Judgment on the Merits of November 19, 1999, Series C, No. 63, para. 144. 2 . IACHR, Judgment on the merits of August, 31, 2001, Series C, No. 79, para. 149.