CONCURRING OPINON OF JUDGE A.A. CANÇADO-TRINDADE 1. I am voting in favor the adoption of these provisional measures through which the Inter-American Court of Human Rights is ordering that protection be extended to all members of communities of the Pueblo indígena de Sarayaku in Ecuador. Still, I feel obliged to revisit the conceptual construct that I have been advocating within the Inter-American Court, which concerns obligations erga omnes of protection under the American Convention. I have no intention of repeating, in detail, everything I have thus far said on the subject, particularly in my other Concurring Opinions on the Orders for Provisional Measures adopted by the Court in the Matter of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó (of June 18, 2002), The Communities of Jiguamiandó and Curbaradó (of March 6, 2003) and Pueblo indígena de Kankuamo (of July 5, 2004). Instead, I prefer to summarize some of the central points I made on the subject, with a view to effective protection of human rights in a complex situation such as that of the communities of the Pueblo indígena de Sarayaku. 2. In the present Order on Provisional Measures of Protection, the Court has correctly emphasized the State’s “obligation erga omnes" to protect all persons subject to its jurisdiction. This means that this general obligation applies …. not only with respect to the power of the State but also with respect to actions by third parties, including groups of armed irregulars of any kind. (...) given the characteristics of the instant case, provisional measures are needed to protect all members of the Kichwa indigenous people of Sarayaku, in accordance with the provisions of the American Convention. (par. 10) 3. Throughout my years with the Court, I have consistently insisted on the need to develop the doctrine and jurisprudence of the legal regime of obligations erga omnes to protect the rights of the human person,6 premised on the broad scope of the general obligation that States parties to the American Convention undertake in Article 1(1) thereof, which is to ensure the Convention-protected rights to all persons subject to their jurisdiction. That general obligation includes application of provisional measures of protection under the American Convention. Such measures do more than safeguard the efficacy of judicial procedure; they also protect the most fundamental rights of the human person, and thereby become truly protective measures, not simply precautionary.7 4. Thus, all the potential for protection –by way of prevention- under Article 63(2) of the American Convention is realized. The State’s duty to protect also includes its actions vis-à-vis third parties. This is an authentic obligation erga omnes to protect all members of a threatened and harassed community and who, although not named, are no less identifiable. In the present case, the Court found that the members of the communities of the Sarayaku indigenous people meet this requirement, i.e., they are identifiable. 6 . Cf., for example, my Opinions in the Case of Blake v. Guatemala, Judgment on the Merits, January 24, 1998, par. 28, and Judgment on Reparations, January 22, 1999, par. 40). In my Concurring Opinion in the Case of Las Palmeras v. Colombia, Judgment on Preliminary Objections, February 4, 2000 pars. 2 and 6-7; 7 . As I pointed out in my Concurring Opinion in the Case of the Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian Origin in the Dominican Republic (Order of August 18, 2000, paras. 17 and 23).