-3its name from the Charter, it is also necessary that the Charter provides a minimum content for that right. This minimum content could then be clarified – to a certain extent – by other international instruments. Defining the entire content and scope of a right by means of other instruments would invariably result in a modification of the Charter.”7 8. In this regard, it is worth stressing that: “The inclusion [of Article 26] in the text of the Convention requires a theoretical effort in order to endow it with meaning in accordance with the other articles of the Convention and the principles that regulate its interpretation, avoiding two position that we understand are incorrect, [including] the temptation to introduce, by means of this article, a complete list of social rights that, clearly, the States did not intend to incorporate into the system of the Convention, which was designed above all to protect civil and political rights.”8 9. Even though it would have been desirable when Article 26 was drafted to use a less problematic legislative technique than the complex system of referrals to the OAS Charter, the truth is that the referral is to the Charter and not to the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, which could have led to a different interpretation, because the Declaration does contain more precise references to the ESCR.9 Unfortunately, this is not the case.10 10. In addition, it has been affirmed that, in the case of Acevedo Buendía et al. (“Discharged and Retired Employees of the Comptroller’s Office”) v. Peru, the InterAmerican Court accepted that Article 26 of the Convention contained a precise list of the ESCR that could be enforced directly. In my opinion, this gives an excessive scope to that judgment. First, the judgment does not declare the violation of Article 26 and the considerations made relate precisely to the obligation of progressive development and not to a direct enforceability of any right in particular. Second, the judgment does not define or clarify either the scope or minimum content of the ESCR that would be protected. Third, even if the intention was to derive some type of direct justiciability from the affirmation that the obligations of respect and guarantee are applicable to Article 26 of the Convention, it should be stressed that this affirmation is an obiter dictum of that judgment, and thus has no direct relationship to the final decision which 6 Article 45 of the OAS Charter stipulates: “The Member States … agree to dedicate every effort to the application of the following principles and mechanisms: [..] (h) Development of an efficient social security policy.” 7 Oswaldo Ruiz Chiriboga, The American Convention and the Protocol of San Salvador: Two Intertwined Treaties: Non-Enforceability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Inter-American System, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Vol. 31/2 (2013), p. 171. 8 Víctor Abramovich, and Julieta Rossi, ‘La Tutela de los Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales en el Artículo 26 de la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos’, Estudios Socio-Jurídicos, Vol. 9, 2007, p. 37. 9 For example, Article XI establishes that: “Every person has the right to the preservation of his heatlh through sanitary and social measures relating to food, clothing, housing and medical care, to the extent permitted by public and community resources.” 10 In this regard, “[w]hen determining whether a rights is implicit in the Charter, it is necessary, in our opinion, to avoid the shortcut of appealing directly to the American Declaration as an instrument that forms the basis for the content of the human rights established in the Charter. [The foregoing, taking into account that] Article 26 refers to the rights derived from the economic, social, educational, scientific and cultural standards of the Charter and does not refer to the Declaration.” Víctor Abramovich, and Julieta Rossi, ‘La Tutela de los Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales en el Artículo 26 de la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos’, Estudios Socio-Jurídicos, Vol. 9, 2007, p. 47.