Caselaw Database - All Cases

ESCR-Net Caselaw Database: A database on domestic, regional and international decisions regarding Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

In its 39th session (May 16-June 3 2005), the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the supervisory body of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), issued its opinion on a possible incompatibility between the CRC and the standards in the free trade agreement being negotiated by Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, and the U.S. The Committee expressed concern about the possibility that the proposed intellectual property standards undermine the State's ability to ensure access to low cost drugs and to fulfill its obligations under international human rights law.

Comité Panameño por los Derechos Humanos denounced the State of Panama before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for having arbitrarily laid off 270 public officials and union leaders who had taken part in several rallies against the administration's policies and to defend their labor rights. The lay-offs had followed an accusation made by the Government against the same individuals based on their participation in the demonstrations and on their alleged collaboration with a military uprising.

A group of retired citizens filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) against the State of Peru. The IACHR subsequently filed an action with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights alleging violation of rights to private property and judicial protection, and of the obligation to ensure progressive realization of social rights. During their active working life, the petitioners were employed as officials of a State agency that had its own pension fund.

The Yakye Axa community, a Paraguayan indigenous community belonging to the Lengua Enxet Sur people, filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) alleging Paraguay had failed to acknowledge its right to property over ancestral land. Given its impossibility to solve the case, the Commission referred it to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

A group of citizens living with HIV/AIDS filed an amparo action against the Health and Assistance Ministry (HAM) due to its refusal to deliver drugs needed to treat the virus as prescribed (triple therapy). Applicants had no social security and lacked financial means to buy the prescribed drugs.

On April 27, 1998, oil company Arco Oriente Inc. signed an hydrocarbon development agreement with Ecuador. Although 70% of the land belonging to Federación Independiente del Pueblo Shuar del Ecuador (FIPSE) was within the area to be devoted to the project, its members were not notified of the terms of the agreement or the related environmental impact. FIPSE, in a Special Meeting of its members, decided to prohibit all individual negotiations or agreements by FIPSE Member Centers or Associations with the company. This was notified to both the State and the company.

Neuquén Province's Official Defender of Minors filed a complaint with the IACHD alleging violation of children's right to the protection required by their status as minors, as well as of rights to health, a healthy environment, land ownership and effective remedy. The Official Defender had filed an amparo action to protect the health of children and youth in the Paynemil Mapuche community exposed to consumption of water contaminated with lead and mercury.

Neuquén Province's Official Defender of Minors filed an amparo action to protect the health of children and youth in the indigenous Mapuche community of Paynemil, because they had been exposed to water contaminated with lead and mercury. The applicant requested that the State be ordered to provide enough drinking water to ensure the survival of the affected community, to conduct the diagnosis and treatment of affected minors, and to adopt adequate measures to prevent future soil and water contamination.

The Mapuche Pehuenche people of the Upper Bío Bío sector, in the Eighth Region of Chile, started a long fight to defend their rights when the Government of Chile authorized the construction of hydroelectric plants that would have deep consequences on their ancestral land and culture.

An HIV/AIDS-positive person submitted an amparo action with Peru's Health Ministry requesting full medical care, including permanent supply of drugs and periodical testing, as well as CD4 and viral load tests. The petitioner alleged to lack enough financial resources to face the high cost of the treatment. The Court accepted the amparo action and ordered government agencies to comply with Article 8 of Law 26626, which set forth that a Plan to Fight AIDS should have top priority in the budget.