177. […] health should be understood as a fundamental and indispensable guarantee for the exercise of the rights to life and personal integrity. This implies that States have an obligation to adopt provisions of domestic law, including adequate practices, to ensure equal access to health care for persons deprived of liberty, and to ensure the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of such services.41 (Underlining added) 34. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (hereinafter “the ESCR Committee”) has established the right to health as a fundamental guarantee, indispensable for the exercise of other human rights,42 such as the right to life and personal integrity, and not the other way round as the Inter-American Court has established in its case law by association.43 This right implies the existence of a health protection system that offers individuals equal opportunities to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health. According to the ESCR Committee, the notion of the highest standard of health must be understood as the right to enjoy a variety of facilities, goods, services and conditions necessary for the realization of the highest attainable standard of health.44 35. The ESCR Committee has stated that these elements, and their application, will depend on the conditions prevailing in a given State. These have been understood as: a) Availability. Each State Party shall have a sufficient number of public health and health-care facilities, goods and services, as well as programs […] however, these services will include the underlying determinants of health, such as safe and potable drinking water and adequate sanitation facilities, hospitals, clinics and other health-related buildings, trained medical and professional personnel receiving domestically competitive salaries, and essential drugs, as defined by the Action Program on Essential Drugs [of the World Health Organization]. b) Accessibility. Health facilities, goods and services must be accessible to everyone without discrimination, within the jurisdiction of the State Party. [… ] i) Non-discrimination: health facilities, goods and services must be accessible to all, de facto and de jure […] ii) Physical accessibility: health facilities, goods and services must be within safe physical reach for all Cf. Case Chinchilla Sandoval v. Guatemala. Preliminary objection, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of February 29, 2016, Series C No. 312, para. 177. 41 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment 14, The Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health (Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), (Twenty-second Session, 2000), U.N. Doc. E/C.12/2000/4 (2000), paras. 1 and 3. 42 In this regard, in Communication No. 2/2014, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in a case concerning the lack of effective access to the courts to protect the right to adequate housing, used due process guarantees to protect the victim’s right to housing, even though the case originated in the domestic courts, for the lack of adequate notification to the victim. The Committee stated that: Such an irregularity in the notice procedure might not imply a violation of the right to housing if it had no significant impact on the author’s right to defend her full enjoyment of her home […]. The Committee therefore considers that the inadequate notice constituted at that moment a violation of the right to housing, one that was not subsequently remedied by the State as the author was denied both reconsideration of the decision to order an auction and amparo as sought in the Constitutional Court. The Committee [on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights], acting pursuant to Article 9, paragraph 1, of the Optional Protocol to the Covenant, is of the view that, by failing to fulfil its obligation to provide the author with an effective remedy, the State party violated her rights under Article 11, paragraph 1, of the Covenant, read in conjunction with Article 2, paragraph 1. […]. As we can see, in this example, the Committee highlights the fact that although all rights are interdependent, it is possible to determine an autonomous violation of a social right without subsuming it in the civil and political rights, such as the procedural guarantees of due process, ESCR. Cf. UN ESCR Committee, Communication No. 2/2014 in respect of Spain, E/C.12/55/D/2/2014, June 17, 2015, paras. 13.5, 13. 7 and 15. 43 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment 14, The Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health (Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), (22nd Session, 2000), U.N. Doc. E/C.12/2000/4 (2000), paras. 7-9. 44 13