CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE EDUARDO FERRER MAC-GREGOR POISOT TO THE JUDGMENT OF THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE CASE OF SUÁREZ PERALTA v. ECUADOR, OF MAY 21, 2013 I. INITIAL PREMISE: THE POSSIILITY OF HAVING APPROACHED THE RIGHT TO HEALTH DIRECTLY AND AUTONOMOUSLY (ARTICLES 26 AND 1(1) OF THE AMERICAN CONVENTION) 1. In this case, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (hereinafter “the Court” or “the Inter-American Court”) declared the defendant State internationally responsible for the violation of the rights to judicial guarantees and to judicial protection established in Articles 8(1) and 25(1) of the American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter “the American Convention” or “the Pact of San José”), as well as of the obligation to guarantee the right to personal integrity contained in Article 5(1), all in relation to Article 1(1) of the Pact of San José. 2. Although I agree with the sense of the judgment delivered unanimously, I consider that the Inter-American Court could have approached the problem taking into account what really caused this case to reach the inter-American system and, in particular, its jurisdictional instance, which was the implications for the “right to health,” owing to medical malpractice with State responsibility that had a serious impact on the health of a woman of 22 years of age, mother of three children, leading to several operations and ailments that affected her human dignity. 3. From my perspective, this situation could have been considered explicitly, so that the considerations of the Judgment on preliminary objections merits, reparations and costs (hereinafter “the Judgment”) 1 could have dealt with the question fully, and the implications in the case for the right to health could have been examined autonomously. The foregoing, based on recognizing the competence granted to the Inter-American Court by Article 26 of the Pact of San José to rule on the right to health, and understanding the direct justiciability of this social right – not only tangentially and in connection with other civil rights – which could, perhaps, have led to declaring that this treaty-based provision had been violated autonomously, in relation to the obligations of respect and guarantee established in Article 1(1) of the Pact of San José. 4. Indeed, the general obligations of “respect” and “guarantee” that are established in this article of the Convention – together with the obligation to “adapt domestic legislation” of Article 2 of the American Convention – apply to all rights, whether civil, political, economic, social or cultural, in light of the interdependence and indivisibility that exists among all the human rights recognized in the Pact of San José; this “interdependence and indivisibility” was expressly acknowledged with particular emphasis in relation to the right to health in the Judgment that gives rise to this separate opinion, 2 and this entails a series of 1 Case of Suárez Peralta v. Ecuador. Preliminary objections merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of May 21, 2013. 2 See paragraph 131 of the Judgment, which indicates textually that: “The Court also finds it pertinent to recall the interdependence and indivisibility of civil and political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights, because they must be understood integrally as human rights without any specific ranking between them, and as rights that can be required in all cases before those authorities with the relevant competence”; the foregoing following the precedent of the Inter-American Court in the Case of Acevedo Buendía et al. (“Discharged and Retired