4 14. In this regard, the judgment examined causes concern because it inaugurates an operating logic for inter-American justice that affects not only the system of competencies of the Commission and the Court, but also begins to amend and add a list of new rights protected by the American Convention. b) The Protocol of San Salvador 15. As indicated previously,11 it is not possible to address the debate on the Inter-American Court’s jurisdiction in the area of ESCR without taking into account the Protocol of San Salvador. The Protocol’s relevance stems from the fact that it is through this treaty that the States of the region took the decision to define which ESCR they are obliged to comply with. Also, they established clearly and precisely the content of the said rights. 16. Despite this, the States took the sovereign decision to restrict which ESCR established in the Protocol could be monitored by the mechanism of individual petitions when establishing in Article 19(6) that: 6. Any instance in which the rights established in paragraph a) of Article 8 and in Article 13 are violated by action directly attributable to a State Party to this Protocol may give rise, through participation of the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights and, when applicable, of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, to application of the system of individual petitions governed by Article 44 through 51 and 61 through 69 of the American Convention on Human Rights (underlining added). 17. Thus, by this provision, the States decided to limit the competence of the Commission and of the Court to examine contentious cases unless they related to trade union rights and to the right to education. 18. That said, this limitation of competence should not be understood as contradicting the provisions of Article 26 of the American Convention, if it is taken into account that the said article expresses the subsequent and more specific intention of the States regarding the Inter-American Court’s competence in relation to the ESCR. Furthermore, the American Convention should not be read in isolation without taking its Protocol into account, because these are complementary treaties that should be read and interpreted jointly. In this regard, the different proposals for the reform of the inter-American human rights system that sought to include the justiciability of the ESCR reveal that this involved an understanding of the Convention that was contrary to the intention of the States; to their explicit intention not to make the ESCR justiciables, with the exception of those expressly indicated in Article 19(6) of the Protocol. 19. Furthermore, it is relevant to point out that the State obligations arising from the Protocol are independent of the fact that the Court has jurisdiction to declare violations in the context of its contentious function. The State established other mechanisms for simply monitoring compliance with those rights, such as those established in the other paragraphs of Article 19 of the Protocol, such as the possibility of formulating observations and recommendations concerning the status of the ESCR in the Annual Report of the Inter-American Commission. 20. Bearing in mind the foregoing, I consider it inconceivable that a judgment declaring the violation of an ESCR under the inter-American system makes no reference whatsoever to the Protocol and its scope. Below, I will show how this represents an important shortcoming in the arguments but, above and beyond the legal technique that is required of a court of the importance of the Inter-American Court, the failure to refer to the Protocol reveals the express intention not to want to address the problems of jurisdiction and justiciability that arise. In other words, it would appear that, by making no reference to the Protocol, it is sought to disavow its existence as a supplementary treaty to the American Convention, the intention of the States that it 11 In this regard, concurring opinion Case of González Lluy et al. v. Ecuador, paras. 12 to 19.