2 framework of the collective existence. While it is true that this phenomenon can be seen in many societies, perhaps in all, it is also true that in some – such as the indigenous groups of the Americas – it has special, more intense and decisive characteristics. 6. When the Court – and, in particular, I myself, as a judge of the Court – examined the proven facts and the claims made in the Mayagna Community case, I had to bear in mind the terms of the American Convention, and particularly Article 1(2), which emphatically states: "For the purposes of this Convention, “person” means every human being,” in order to define the issues raised and the exercise of its own competence. 7. That perspective, which is very clear – and reflects the ideas and decisions that prevailed when the Convention was drafted – explains the numerous allusions in international instruments to the rights of the person. Several articles state: “Every person/everyone has the right...”; in other words, the human being is recognized as having the right expressed in that article. This is the case of Article 21 concerning property, the first paragraph of which begins with the reiterated formula: “Everyone has the right....” It alludes, thus, to a right of the human being. 8. Other provisions of the American treaty system have used this approach. For example, Article 8(1)(a) of the Protocol of San Salvador, which refers to aspects of individual and collective labor laws, both sectors of modern labor law. The Protocol recognizes rights to individual workers and alludes to the obligations of States towards them as natural persons, as well as towards the trade unions and workers federations, collective or legal persons composed of the former or of groups of natural persons. 9. The same article, which refers to the “right of workers to organize trade unions,” characterizes the latter’s powers, in correlation to the obligations of the States, as an “extension” of the individual right of workers to organize trade unions and join them for the purpose of protecting and promoting their interests. Consequently, the Protocol protects directly the rights of the human being, and only indirectly promotes – through the rights of the person, which are always foremost – the powers of collective persons. 10. I consider that the judgment delivered in the Mayagna Community case should be understood in the context of these considerations. In this regard, in paragraph 14 of my concurring opinion to that judgment, I indicated: “In its analysis of the matter subject to its jurisdiction, the Inter-American Court regarded the rights to use and enjoy property, protected under Convention Article 21, from a perfectly valid perspective, that of the members of the indigenous communities. In my opinion, the approach taken for purposes of the present judgment does not in any way imply a disregard or denial of other related rights that differ in nature, such as the collective rights so frequently referenced in the domestic and international instruments that I have cited in this opinion. It must be recalled that individual subjective rights flow from and are protected by these community rights, which are an essential part of the juridical culture of many indigenous peoples and, by extension, of their members. In short, there is an intimate and inextricable link between individual and collective rights, a linkage that is a condition sine qua non for genuine protection of persons belonging to indigenous ethnic groups."