11
50 stipulates that, if the matter has not been resolved, the Commission shall prepare a report
which may, if the Commission so elects, include its recommendations and proposals for the
satisfactory resolution of the case. If these procedures do not lead to a satisfactory result, the
case is ripe for submission to the Court pursuant to the terms of Article 51 of the Convention,
provided that all other requirements for the Court to exercise its contentious jurisdiction have
been met.
60.
The procedure just described contains a mechanism designed, in stages of increasing
intensity, to encourage the State to fulfill its obligation to cooperate in the resolution of the case.
The State is thus offered the opportunity to settle the matter before it is brought to the Court,
and the petitioner has the chance to obtain an appropriate remedy more quickly and simply. We
are dealing with mechanisms whose operation and effectiveness will depend on the circumstances
of each case and, most especially, on the nature of the rights affected, the characteristics of the
acts denounced, and the willingness of the government to cooperate in the investigation and to
take the necessary steps to resolve it.
61.
Article 50 of the Convention provides:
1.
If a settlement is not reached, the Commission shall, within the time limit established by its
Statute, draw up a report setting forth the facts and stating its conclusions. If the report, in whole or in
part, does not represent the unanimous agreement of the members of the Commission, any member may
attach to it a separate opinion. The written and oral statements made by the parties in accordance with
paragraph 1.e of Article 48 shall also be attached to the report.
2.
The report shall be transmitted to the states concerned, which shall not be at liberty to publish it.
3.
In transmitting the report, the Commission may make such proposals and recommendations as it
sees fit.
The above provision describes the last step of the Commission's proceedings before the case
under consideration is ready for submission to the Court. The application of this article presumes
that no solution has been reached in the previous stages of the proceedings.
62.
Article 51 of the Convention, in turn, reads:
1.
If, within a period of three months from the date of the transmittal of the report of the Commission
to the states concerned, the matter has not either been settled or submitted by the Commission or by the
state concerned to the Court and its jurisdiction accepted, the Commission may, by the vote of an absolute
majority of its members, set forth its opinion and conclusions concerning the question submitted for its
consideration.
2.
Where appropriate, the Commission shall make pertinent recommendations and shall prescribe a
period within which the state is to take the measures that are incumbent upon it to remedy the situation
examined.
3.
When the prescribed period has expired, the Commission shall decide by the vote of an absolute
majority of its members whether the state has taken adequate measures and whether to publish its report.
The Court need not analyze here the nature of the time limit set by Article 51 (1), nor the
consequences that would result under different assumptions were such a period to expire without
the case being brought before the Court. The Court will simply emphasize that because this
period starts to run on the date of the transmittal to the parties of the report referred to in Article
50, this offers the Government one last opportunity to resolve the case before the Commission
and before the matter can be submitted to a judicial decision.
63.
Article 51 (1) also considers the possibility of the Commission preparing a new report
containing its opinion, conclusions and recommendations, which may be published as stipulated in
Article 51 (3). This provision poses many problems of interpretation, such as, for example,
defining the significance of this report and how it resembles or differs from the Article 50 report.