due respect to opinions otherwise, restricting analysis of this case to civil rights seems
to me to be an error that can and should be avoided.
47.
At this point, it should be noted that the interdependence between the
different generations of rights does not support the argument that the direct
justiciability of ESCER is unnecessary. The Court's action will only be effective and
transparent once all the reasons invoked in each case are explicitly and fully
considered, with the construction of a line of argumentation that encompasses the
entire plexus of rights violated.
48.
Thus, what is clearly under development and still requires reflection as regards
ESCER is not the now-settled possibility of immediate declaration of their violation
but the development of techniques for reaching the decision that prioritize the
dialogic method with domestic jurisdictions, especially in cases with large-scale and
persistent harm to social, economic, cultural, or environmental rights nationally.
49.
The instantaneity or not of the appeal, however, has nothing to do with the
lack of abstract justiciability of the right set forth in Article 26. To think otherwise,
with all due respect, is an error in the dogmatics of human rights. Hence, it makes
no sense to change the case law on the full and immediate effectiveness of ESCER,
in my assessment.
50.
From another angle, realization of ESCER in individual cases like this one does
not require a hermeneutic that is much different from the one used for civil and
political rights (as the Court has demonstrated in this case). However, in the
situations most difficult to resolve—where a collective or mass human rights violation
has taken place—due to political obstacles or shortcomings in institutional
coordination at the domestic level, the Court, in my opinion, has no reason to retreat
or find that the right violated is not justiciable; Rather, it is enough to take due care
and administer dialogical remedies—distinct from the democratic process—by
assigning responsibilities and finding a need for economic and fiscal planning to
implement the right withheld (in the case of an omission) or provide reparations (in
the event of an action that amounts to a rights violation). Lastly, the compliance
structure must provide for a continual dialogue between the Court and states, similar
to what jurist Roberto Gargarella41 recommends for resolving domestic conflicts over
complex constitutional rights.
51.
However, these requirements as far as a special decision-making technique
should in no way be mistaken for an unwanted return to a hands-off doctrine.
Diametrically opposed to this, what this Court wants, from my perspective, is an
effort of institutional imagination, permeable to some degree to experimentalism,
such that at the conclusion of the transnational dialogue with the state in violation,
full restoration of protection to some vulnerable ESCER is restored. Only then will the
victims be placed in a status activus of full enjoyment of the rights protected by
Article 26 of the Convention.
52.
Lastly, with these precautions and reasonable collaboration with states—
presumably, given their acquiescence to litigation before the Court—during the
compliance with judgment phase, the tailored remedy will be more effective and not
appear as merely comforting rhetoric or “evasive social therapy”42 offered by
professional theorists. Escaping the temptation to perform “rationalizing legal
GARGARELLA, Por una Justicia Dialógica. El Poder Judicial como Promotor de La Deliberación
Democrática. Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno, 2014, pg. 123.
41
UNGER, Roberto Mangabeira. O Direito e o Futuro da Democracia. Rio de Janeiro: Boitempo,
2004. pg. 107.
42
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