6 22. And in the cases of Juan Humberto Sánchez (2003, para. 110) and the 19 Tradesmen (2004, para. 153), the Court explicitly stated that The right to life plays a key role in the American Convention as it is the essential corollary for realization of the other rights. When the right to life is not respected, all other rights lack meaning. The States have the obligation to ensure creation of the conditions required to avoid violations of this inalienable right and, specifically, the duty of avoiding violations of this right by its agents. Compliance with Article 4, in combination with Article 1(1) of the American Convention, not only requires that no person be deprived of his life arbitrarily (negative obligation), but also that the States take all appropriate measures to protect and preserve the right to life (positive obligation), as part of their duty to ensure full and free exercise of the rights by all persons under their jurisdiction. This active protection of the right to life by the State does not only involve legislators, but all State institutions. 23. For all the aforementioned reasons, we find that for operative paragraph n.4 of the instant Judgment not to contradict the body of the judgment, and specifically its operative paragraphs ns. 3 and 7, the Court should have found the State to be objectively responsible internationally, also due to lack of due diligence, as a causal link to the death of the ten members of the Yakye Axa Community listed in paragraph 8 (supra) of our Dissenting Opinion. We hope that our reasoning will help to correct, as soon as possible, the regression that operative paragraph 4 of the instant Judgment constitutes in connection with evolution of the jurisprudence of this Court. 24. We the undersigning Judges decided to state our position and issue the instant Joint Dissenting Opinion on the objective international responsibility of the State for violation of the right to life of ten members of the Yakye Axa Community, including eight helpless children (see paragraph 8, supra), because in cases such as this one, in which lack of due diligence by the State has a direct impact in terms of loss of human lives, it is our understanding that the Judges of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights must enhance the awareness of all inhabitants of our region so that facts such as those of the instant case do not happen again, to the detriment of those who most need protection, who have no one else to resort to in our societies, and of all those who are socially marginalized and excluded, who suffer in silence, but who in no way can be forgotten by the Law. Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade Judge Pablo Saavedra Alessandri Secretary Manuel E. Ventura Robles Judge

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