63 f) They request the Court to determine the contents of the article on progressive development of economic, social and cultural rights and also to establish parameters and criteria that instruct the States on how to comply with their juridical obligations, as well as criteria to determine how regressive measures violate their obligations under the Convention. Moreover, it would be “very useful” if the Court would establish guidelines that allow the State to adopt an integrated social security policy. The arguments of the State 144. With regard to Article 26 of the Convention, the State alleges that: a) It has not violated the progressive development of the retirement pension of the alleged victims, because the pension they are receiving, as a result of the judicial proceedings they filed, “is considerably higher than the one to which they would be legally entitled, if their pensions had been regulated by the regime that corresponded to them;” in other words, in function of the salary of the employees of the public sector labor regime and not to those of the private sector regime; and b) This article contains a generic declaration that cannot be interpreted so extensively as to claim that it sustains that, under the Peruvian social security and pension regime, payment of pensions is absolute and cannot be limited by law. Considerations of the Court 145. Article 26 of the Convention states that: The States Parties undertake to adopt measures, both internally and through international cooperation, especially those of an economic and technical nature, with a view to achieving progressively, by legislation or other appropriate means, the full realization of the rights implicit in the economic, social, educational, scientific, and cultural standards set forth in the Charter of the Organization of American States as amended by the Protocol of Buenos Aires. 146. The Inter-American Commission and the representatives of the alleged victims and their next of kin alleged that Article 26 of the American Convention had been violated because, by reducing the amount of the pensions of the alleged victims, the State failed to comply with its obligation to progressively develop their economic, social and cultural rights and, in particular, did not ensure the progressive development of their right to a pension. 147. Economic, social and cultural rights have both an individual and a collective dimension. This Court considers that their progressive development, about which the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has already ruled158, should be measured in function of the growing coverage of economic, social and cultural rights in general, and of the right to social security and to a pension in particular, of the entire population, bearing in mind the imperatives of social equity, 158 U.N. Doc. E/1991/23, United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 3: The nature of States Parties obligations (paragraph 1 of article 2 of the Covenant), adopted at the Fifth Session, 1990, point 9.

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