5 23. Based on the above, it is pertinent to mention that the right to work is not a new or emerging right. To the contrary, it consists in a right that is solidly consolidated and has been recognized for a long time in the countries of the region, as established in paragraph 145 of the judgment. Similarly, the different States of the Americas have established domestic labor courts to protect the rights of workers and, in many cases, this may lead to proceedings that even reach a country’s highest courts. Consequently, the recognition of the autonomy of the right to work as an autonomous human right protected by the American Convention should not have significant effects in the domestic sphere of the countries that, for decades, have protected this right at the domestic level; rather, it contributes to strengthening the mechanisms to guarantee its effectiveness. This is also evident from the need to guarantee judicial protection (access to justice) to the rights recognized in domestic laws, as established in Articles 25 and 29 of the American Convention (paras. 173 to 176 of the judgment). 24. In this regard, the Preamble to the American Convention (1969) clearly establishes the inclusiveness and validity of the ESCER: “[…] Reiterating that, in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ideal of free men enjoying freedom from fear and want can be achieved only if conditions are created whereby everyone may enjoy his economic, social, and cultural rights, as well as his civil and political rights, and Considering that the Third Special Inter-American Conference (Buenos Aires, 1967) approved the incorporation into the Charter of the Organization itself of broader standards with respect to economic, social, and educational rights and resolved that an inter-American convention on human rights should determine the structure, competence, and procedure of the organs responsible for these matters […].”5 25. In addition, to the provisions of the American Convention, and reaffirming this purpose, in 2012, the States of the Americas adopted, unanimously, the Social Charter of the Americas with the clear purpose established in its Preamble: Recognizing the need to strengthen the inter-American system with an instrument to guide action and partnership-for-development activities designed to promote integral development and observance of economic, social, and cultural rights, as well as the elimination of poverty and inequality. 26. Therefore, all these social and State efforts addressed at strengthening the implementation of the ESCER would not be reasonable if the Inter-American Court continued to examine these rights only indirectly, even when they were the main issue of the victim’s petition and of the whole proceedings, as in this case. 27. Indeed, the right to work has been recognized in different international instruments and in contemporary constitutional texts as one of the basic elements for the full realization of human rights, in their two dimensions: that of the so-called civil and political rights, and that of the social, economic, cultural and environmental rights. As an essential element of social integration and a material presumption on the existence of those rights, work should be, in itself, definitively incorporated into the normative rationale of human rights. 28. Notwithstanding the above, it is appropriate to recall the considerations in our opinion in the Case of Canales Huapaya et al. v. Peru on the scope of the right to work in light of the Convention, that: “this understanding of the right to work as directly fundamental in the States, or of the direct justiciability of the right to work under the American Convention, does not mean understanding the right to work as an absolute right, as a right without limits, or that it must be See also Articles 112 and 150 of the Protocol of Amendment to the Charter of the Organization of American States (B-31) “Protocol of Buenos Aires,” signed at the Third Special Inter-American Conference. Buenos Aires, February 27, 1967. 5