3
prevent or avoid risking the right to life of the members of the Sawhoyamaxa Community.
The Court considers that the deaths of 18 children members of the Community, to wit: NN
Galarza, Rosana López, Eduardo Cáceres, Eulalio Cáceres, Esteban González-Aponte, NN
González-Aponte, NN Yegros, Jenny Toledo, Guido Ruiz-Díaz, NN González, Diego Andrés
Ayala, Francisca Britez, Silvia Adela Chávez, Esteban Jorge Alvarenga, Derlis Armando
Torres, Juan Ramón González, Arnaldo Galarza and Fátima Galarza (supra para. 73(74))
are attributable to the State, precisely for the lack of prevention, which furthermore
additionally violates Article 19 of the Convention. Likewise, the Court finds that the State
violated Article 4(1) of the American Convention, as regards Article 1(1) thereof, due to
the death of Luis Torres-Chávez, who died of enterocolitis, without any kind of medical
care (supra para. 73(74).
15.
By entering an unanimous judgment in the case of the Sawhoyamaxa
Community, the Inter-American Court rectified a judgment — Case of the Indigenous
Community Yakye Axa — in which a restrictive interpretation of the right to life had
prevailed, and returned to the path, taken in previous judgments, specifically in the
Case of the Street Children,3 in which a broad interpretation of human rights
violations, especially the breach of the right to life, had at all times guided the
Court’s decisions. And this should have always been the case.
Manuel E. Ventura-Robles
Judge
Pablo Saavedra-Alessandri
Secretary
3
IACHR. Case of the “Street Children” (Villagrán-Morales et al.) v. Guatemala. Judgment of
November 19, 1999.