paradigmatic source 23 the Vienna Declaration and Action Program of 1993. 24 To affirm
them as such signifies that there exist, among the human rights, relationships of mutual
support, sometimes expressed in the manner of linkage arguments, 25 in which an
attempt is made to justify the cases of the simultaneous effect of rights for conceptual,
normative, epistemical or determinative reasons. 26 These relationships of mutual
support qualify and reinforce the systemical nature of the Convention and have been
examined by the Court in various of its judgments. 27 In view of the interdependent
nature of human rights, it is not surprising that the phenomenon of overlapping norms
sometimes occurs. Therefore, the concomitant effect of the rights and the invocation to
the global dimension of the Convention need not be viewed as a defect of the system, a
conceptual confusion or an interpretive artifice. On the contrary, it is one of the most
widespread, distinctive and valuable characteristics of the systems of human rights.
12.
As it is in complete agreement with the aforementioned four hermeneutical
parameters, the judgment in Benites Cabrera et al. v. Peru is an undeniable advance
from the point of view of the global and integral protection of human rights. A first
aspect, as mentioned, was the recognition, on the basis of Article 26 of the Convention,
of international responsibility for the violation of the right to work with respect to the
component of work stability. A second fundamental aspect that furthers this global and
integral understanding of events that result in infringements of the rights of the
Convention was the declaration of international responsibility for violating Article
23(1)(c). We will now reconstruct the manner in which this advance was produced in
relation to the Court’s precedents that share the same context of facts.
II.2. The integrality of human rights and the transcendental step in Benites
Cabrera: the infringement of the right to work stability.
13.
This case inserts itself into the context of the dismissal of 1,117 Peruvian
congressional employees in December 1992 after the rupture of the democraticconstitutional order of April 5, 1992 that was described by the Court in Dismissed
Congressional Employees (Aguado Alfaro et al.) v. Peru, which referred to 257 dismissed
employees, and Canales Huapaya et al. v. Peru, concerning three victims. In those
judgments, the Court declared proved a series of facts that preceded the dismissal of
those congressional employees, as well as the adoption of laws and administrative
resolutions designed to repair the irregular dismissals during the reorganization of public
bodies implemented during the 1990s. 28
However, this understanding was already verifiable; for example, in the resolution of the UN General
Assembly that decided to draft one binding convention that contemplated all the rights of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (cf. Res. 421(V) of 1950). Although this decision was changed in the "separation
resolution" (Res. 543(VI)/1951-1952), which was responsible for the division into the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, that
resolution reaffirmed the same principles.
24
Part I, para. 5: “All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and are interrelated.”
This phrase also appears in the Declaration of Montreal, in the Yogyakarta Principles and in the International
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
25
See James W. Nickel, “Rethinking Indivisibility: Towards a Theory of Supporting Relations between
Human Rights,” 30(4) Human Rights Quarterly, 2008, pp. 984–1001; Pablo Gilabert, “The Importance of
Linkage Arguments for the Theory and Practice of Human Rights: A Response to James Nickel,” 32(2) Human
Rights Quarterly, 2010, pp. 425–438.
26
Gilabert, op. cit., pp. 427-428.
27
Cf. Case of Gonzales Lluy et al. v. Ecuador. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs.
Judgment of September 1, 2015. Series C No. 298, para. 172. Similarly: Case of Suárez Peralta v. Ecuador.
Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of May 21, 2013. Series C No. 261, para.
131 and Case of Lagos del Campo v. Peru. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment
of August 31, 2017. Series C No. 340, para. 141.
28
Cf. Case of Benites Cabrera et al. v. Peru, op. cit., para. 65.
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