Enforcement/Implementation of ESCR

Primary tabs

Country: 
Brazil
Working Group(s) / Area(s) of Work: 
OP-ICESCR
Country: 
Nigeria
Country: 
Chile
Working Group(s) / Area(s) of Work: 
Corporate Accountability
OP-ICESCR

In 1998, the Aboriginal Communities Association Lhaka Honat filed an action with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) against the State of Argentina. The communities living in Salta province denounced violations of their right to ancestral land, to cultural integrity and to a safe environment, following the State’s decision to build an international bridge and carry out an urban development plan in their territory, which would significantly alter their way of life.

Mariela Viceconte filed a collective amparo action seeking to force the Argentine State to produce the Candid 1 vaccine. Her case was based on her own right to health and that of other persons exposed to contracting “Argentine Hemorrhagic Fever,” including in Argentina approximately 3.5 million people. The action specifically alleged a violation of the obligation to prevent, treat and fight epidemic and endemic diseases arising from article 12.2.c) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

A petition was filed with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) against the State of Guatemala alleging the kidnapping, torture and death of four minors and the murder of a fifth one in 1990, in the city of Guatemala, by members of the security forces, and the State's failure to provide adequate judicial protection to the victims' families.

Centro de Derechos Económicos y Sociales (CDES), on behalf of the General Secretary of Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores del Ministerio de Salud [National Union of Health Ministry Workers] and the workers represented by the union, filed a report with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) against the State of Ecuador.

The Ombudsman filed a protection action against the Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sociedad Occidental de Colombia Inc. on behalf of the U'wa People, seeking revocation of an oil development license granted to the said company affecting traditional indigenous land (see in this database “Defensor del Pueblo, doctor Jaime Córdoba Triviño (on behalf of several members of U'WA Indigenous Group) vs. Ministerio del Medio Ambiente y Occidental de Colombia, Inc. s. Acción de tutela”). The Colombian court ordered a consultation should take place within 30 days.

Several non governmental organizations filed a protection action due to poor clinical and surgical treatment of children with congenital heart conditions treated at the J. M. de los Ríos Children's Hospital in Caracas. The action was based on the rights to life and to health enshrined in the Constitution, human rights treaties, and the Children and Adolescents Protection Law. Children had to wait for a long time to get surgery appointments. Some died while waiting and others who did get an appointment died for not being operated earlier.

Between December 27, 1995 and September 30, 1999, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) received numerous petitions filed by retired persons and several non-governmental organizations.  The petitions claimed violations of the rights to effective judicial remedy, due legal process, property, social security, health, well-being and equal protection, which are enshrined in the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man (ADRDM) and in the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR).