SEPARATE CONCURRING OPINION
OF JUDGE JACKMAN
I am in total agreement with the decision of the Court in this case, with the
orders with which the judgment concludes, and with the ratio decidendi of the
judgment as a whole.
I must, however, reluctantly put on record my inability to join wholeheartedly
in the enthusiasm with which the Court appears to have welcomed, in paragraphs
147 to 154, the so-called proyecto de vida ("life-plan" or "life project"), a concept
which is new to the jurisprudence of this Court, and one which, in my respectful
view, is lacking both in clarity and in juridical cogency.
It is to be noted that the Court has refrained from making a specific order for
damages in respect of this concept. Nevertheless, the statement at paragraph 153
to the effect that "...the Court recognises the existence of grave damage to the ‘lifeproject’ of Maria Elena Loayza Tamayo..." represents a formal acceptance of the
concept as a legitimate head of damages which, inevitably, will henceforward form
part of the armoury of plaintiffs appearing before the Court in hearings on
reparations.
The Court has
following terms:
defined "proyecto de vida" in paragraphs 147 to 150 in the
This notion is different from the notions of special damages (daño emergente) and loss
of earnings (lucro cesante).... [T]he so-called [proyecto de vida] deals with the full selfactualisation of the person concerned and takes account of her calling in life, her skills,
her particular circumstances, her potentialities, and her ambitions, thus permitting her to
set for herself, in a reasonable manner, specific goals, and to attain those
goals...[D]amage to the "life-plan"...implies the loss or severe diminution, in a manner
that is irreparable or reparable only with great difficulty, of [a person’s] prospects of
self-development.
In this context the Court has identified as "irreparable damage" to the "life-plan" of
Mrs. Loayza the proven fact that her illegal arrest, trial, and imprisonment have
obliged her to "interrupt her studies and to take up life in a foreign country far from
the context in which her life had been evolving, in a state of solitude, poverty, and
severe physical and psychological distress" (paragraph 152).
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