2 regarding compliance with the Judgment on reparations (supra Having Seen clause No. 2) and hear the Inter-American Commission’s and the representatives’ comments thereon. 7. The private hearing held by the Court at the Court’s seat in San José, Costa Rica, on January 29, 2010.1 CONSIDERING: 1. That monitoring compliance with its own decisions is a power inherent in the jurisdictional functions of the Court. 2. That Colombia has been a State Party to the American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter, the “American Convention”) since July 31, 1973, and that it recognized the contentious jurisdiction of the Court on June 21, 1985. 3. That Article 68(1) of the American Convention provides that “[t]he States Parties to the Convention undertake to comply with the judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties.” That the State Parties’ obligations under the Convention bind all State branches and organs.2 4. That, given the final and not-subject-to-appeal nature of the Court’s judgments as established in Article 67 of the Convention, said judgments are to be promptly and fully complied with by the State. 5. That the obligation to comply with the rulings of the Court conforms to a basic principle of the law on the international responsibility of States, as supported by international case law, under which States are required to comply with their international treaty obligations in good faith (pacta sunt servanda) and, as previously held by the Court and provided for in Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law 1 In accordance with Article 6(2) of the Rules of Procedure, to hold the hearing the Court used a commission of judges comprised of: Judge Diego García-Sayán, Judge Leonardo A. Franco and Judge Alberto Pérez-Pérez. The hearing was attended by: (a) on behalf of the Inter-American Commission: Lilly Ching, Specialist Attorney of the Executive Secretariat; (b) on behalf of the victims’ representatives: Luz Marina Monzón-Cifuentes, Viviana Rodríguez-Peña and Oscar Javier Carbonell-Valderrama, from Comisión Colombiana de Juristas [Colombian Commission of Jurists], and (c) on behalf of the State of Colombia: Carlos Franco Echavarría, Director of the Presidential Human Rights Program; Ángela Margarita Rey, Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Felipe Medina, Coordinator of the Inter-Institutional Operational Team; Nidia Duque, Advisor to the InterInstitutional Operational Team; Brigadier General Jorge Rodríguez-Clavijo, Head of Human Rights at the National Army; Colonel Efraín Aragón-Sánchez, Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Advisor; Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Arango-Alzate, Head of Human Rights at the National Police Department; Edith Claudia Hernández-Aguilar, Human Rights Advisor at the Ministry of Defense; Oswaldo RamosArrendó, Head of the Legal Office of the Administrative Department of Security – DAS, and Juliana Bustamante, Human Rights Advisor at DAS. 2 Cf. Case of Baena-Ricardo et al. v. Panama. Competence. Judgment of November 28, 2003, Series C No. 104, para. 60; Case of La Cantuta v. Peru. Monitoring Compliance with Judgment. Order of the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights of November 20, 2009, Considering clause No. 5, and Case of CantoralBenavides v. Peru. Monitoring Compliance with Judgment. Order of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of November 20, 2009, Considering clause No. 5.