Dictum of the day, or on the new hope

States tranformed into machines of oppression and destruction cessed to be States in the eyes of their victimized population. Thrown into lawlessness, their victims sought refuge and survival elsewhere, in the jus gentium, in the law of nations, and, in our times, in the Law of United Nations. I dare to nourish the hope that the conclusion of the present Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice may conform the closing chapter of yet another long episode of the timeless saga of the human kind in search of emancipation from tyranny and systematic oppression.

Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Accordance with international law of the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo, 22 July 2010, the Separate opinion of judge Antonio Augusto Cancado Trindade, para. 240.