New aspects of the right to life through the lens of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Abstract

In the Inter-American Court of Human Rights case-law the question of the right to life is not new: the Court emphasized on numerous occasions the necessity for the states to observe both negative and positive obligations stemming from Article 4 of the American Convention on Human Rights. However, recent IACtHR judgments show that the socio-economic dimension of the right to life is increasingly being taken into account by the Court when interpreting Article 4 in conjunction with other Articles of the Convention. It includes the right to a healthy environment, the right to health, the right to water, food and other aspects, without which a decent life is unthinkable. The legal provisions of the IACtHR decisions have an impact on other judicial and advisory human rights bodies such as the UN Human Rights Committee and the European Court of Human Rights. The article examines selected IACtHR decisions involving the right to life, taking into account new, not previously mentioned aspects, such as reproductive rights, the right to health and the right to a healthy environment.