dispute, not even on the facts. The Lagos del Campo v. Peru case is a very clear example of how this principle can be used without any reason to justify it, since its invocation seemed more the result of a decision inspired by the desire to establish a "novel" criterion than by a practical need to do justice to the victims in a case. 3. It is important to bear in mind that the lack of procedural opportunity for States to decide on questions of law collides with at least two fundamental issues of the protection regime of the InterAmerican Human Rights System. The first is the State's right to defense. This right implies -at the very least- that the State has the possibility to dispute the allegations related to its international responsibility for the violation of a human right, even more so when dealing with issues related to a completely new approach in the Court's jurisprudence, such as the direct justiciability of ESCR. By analyzing violations of rights that were never debated at any stage of the proceedings, the Court affects the possibility of the State to present arguments and evidence to refute such violations. The second is the rule of exhaustion of domestic remedies, which implies the procedural opportunity for the State to provide a remedy through its domestic jurisdiction for the possible violations of rights that - if it does not do so - would later be analyzed in the international sphere. It is essential to remember that these rules exist and that they are part of the legal system to which the Court is a party and whose enforcement it is responsible for ensuring.8 4. Recent jurisprudential practice shows frequent use of the principle of iura novit curia with little regard for the aforementioned rules. The judgments in Lagos del Campo, San Miguel Sosa, Cuscul Pivaral and Muelle Flores proceeded to analyze the rights to job security, health, humane treatment and dignity, respectively, without providing sufficient justification for the invocation of the aforementioned principle. In Muelle Flores, the judgment only states that iura novit curia can be invoked because it is a general principle of law that has been repeatedly used in international jurisprudence. In Cuscul Pivaral the allegations of the representatives on the violation of the obligations of progressivity had little to do with the determination of international responsibility for the violation of Article 26. In Lagos del Campo and San Miguel Sosa an attempt was made to support the use of the principle of iura novit curia, but the Court simply limited itself to stating that the State has had the opportunity to express its respective positions in relation to the facts that support the declared violations, and reiterated that Article 29 allowed the case to be examined in light of the ESCR. 5. It would seem that the only reason that has been expressed for invoking the principle of iura novit curia -beyond its recognition as a general principle of law- is that the State was aware of the facts throughout the proceedings and therefore would have had the procedural opportunity to rule on possible violations. However, it is necessary to reflect on the extent to which it is reasonable for The consideration that I make on the limitations to the principle of iura novit curia are not unprecedented or isolated criteria, but are part of the corpus iuris of International Law, which has been systematized through decisions of other international jurisdictional bodies. The International Court of Justice has determined that their application is restricted by a parameter of reasonableness, relevance and prohibition to decide beyond what the dispute and the framework of the case naturally allow (Cf. International Court of Justice, Case concerning Fisheries Jurisdiction (United Kingdom v. Iceland), Judgment of 25 November 2003, Judgment of the International Court of Justice, Case concerning Fisheries Jurisdiction (United Kingdom v. Iceland), Judgment of 25 November 2003. Iceland), Judgment of 25 July 1974, para. 17; ICJ, Decision on Interpretation of Judgment of 10 November 1950 in the Political Asylum Case (Colombia v. Peru), para. 404; and ICJ, Case concerning the "Arrest Warrant" (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Belgium), Judgment of February 14, 2002, para. 43; For their part, both the International Criminal Court and the Ad Hoc Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia have agreed that the consequences of a discretionary, indiscriminate, arbitrary or, at best, insufficiently reasoned invocation of the principle of iura novit curia can result in the defenselessness of the defendant Cf. International Criminal Court, Case of the Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Judgment concerning Article 74 of the Rome Statute of 14 March 2012 (ICC-01/04-01/06-2842); ad hoc Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Case of the Prosecutor v. Kupreskic, Judgment of 14 January 2000, paras. 733-738. 8 2