SEPARATE OPINION OF JUDGE ROBERTO F. CALDAS INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS CASE OF LAGOS DEL CAMPO v. PERU JUDGMENT OF AUGUST 31, 2017 (Preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs) I. Introduction and relevance of the judgment 1. This is a historic decision that represents an important step forward in case law. Even though it has taken time, it is a step with regard to the justiciability of the economic, social, cultural and environmental rights (hereinafter “the ESCER”) 1 that has been duly studied, reflected on, weighed and worked on over many years by diverse panels of judges of this Court in San José, as has this decision to declare, for the first time in the history of its case law, the violation of Article 26 of the American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Convention” or “the ACHR”). This decision has been taken in such a mature and deliberate manner that I find it important to reflect on the combined strength of all the panels of judges that have now reached the same conclusion. Although a significant majority of the Court voted in favor (five votes to two), we believe that it will still take some time to achieve the always desirable unanimity owing to the different backgrounds or national experiences. 2. However, it should be clearly understood that the Inter-American Court has been protecting the ESCER for many years. The Court has been doing so by considering the respective ESCER a secondary or indirect right of a civil or political right, when in many cases it was really the main right claimed. Thus, to date, many people, including jurists, considered that there was no point in submitting a direct petition on the ESCER to the inter-American system. 3. By this separate opinion, in which I fully share the conclusions reached by this InterAmerican Court of Human Rights (hereinafter “the Court”) and the reparations resulting from them, I express my support for this judgment, merely differing on the issue of the breadth of a simple – but still important – procedural matter concerning the application of the iura novit curia principle. 4. Notwithstanding other advances to be described below, I would like to emphasize that, with this milestone judgment, the right to work and, particularly, job security, is recognized as an autonomous right. Thus, it is the first occasion on which the Inter-American Court declares that Article 26 of the American Convention and the rights derived from it are justiciable. The expression “economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR)” has recently been expanded by the word “environmental,” thus, this is now “economic, social, cultural and environmental rights (ESCER)” in light of the emergence of the focus on and protection of environmental rights as a human right. Some legal doctrine and some parts of civil society had been claiming this for some time. It also makes a great deal of sense in view of the fluid dialogue that the Court is developing with the Inter-American Commission, which has created a new Rapporteurship on the issue: Special Rapporteurship on economic, social, cultural and environmental rights (REESCRA). I am therefore using the expanded name, in the understanding that environmental rights are a fundamental and interdependent part of social rights. 1