3 6. Whereas in Advisory Opinion OC-4, the Inter-American Court interpreted Article 1(1) of the Convention as the obligation not to discriminate, since then – primarily since the Velásquez Rodríguez case- it has adopted a different interpretation and held that the provision establishes a generic obligation to comply with each and every one of the Convention’s provisions. In its judgments in the Velásquez Rodríguez and Godínez Cruz cases, the Court wrote that Article 1(1) of the American Convention “specifies the obligation assumed by the States Parties in relation to each of the rights protected. Each claim alleging that one of those rights has been infringed necessarily implies that Article 1 (1) of the Convention has also been violated” (5). In its January 19, 1995 Judgment in the Neira Alegría case, the Court cited the above-quoted text and added that Article 1(1) is a general provision and its violation is always related to the violation of a provision that establishes a specific human right. (6) In other words, by the Court’s interpretation, every time a right or guarantee protected under the Convention is violated, so, too, is its Article 1(1). Article 1(1) is something of a paradox: it is an obligation that, by itself, can be neither violated nor fulfilled. In effect, Article 1(1) can only be violated if another article of the Convention is violated, and is not observed unless the Convention is being fully observed. 7. The Court’s interpretation of Article 1(1) means that the Convention contains a provision making the Convention mandatory; in other words, a clause wherein the Convention declares itself to be binding. Let us take some examples to better understand the situation. Let us suppose that a country enacts a penal code in which each article describes the “offense,” i.e. the prohibited human behavior and the penalty that goes with it. Under Article 20 of this penal code, for example, burglary carries a penalty of one month to two years in prison; under Article 62, arson carries a penalty of one to four years’ imprisonment. Let us also suppose, for the sake of argument, that this penal code has an article 1 stating that “every inhabitant of the country shall be bound by this Code.” In such a situation, it could happen that when a person steals a chicken, the judge convicts him of violating Articles 1 and 20 of the penal code. Another person is accused of setting fire to his neighbor’s house; once the facts are proved, the judge convicts him of violating Articles 1 and 62 of the penal code. As one can clearly tell, the article 1 of our example would only be violated if another article of the code has been violated. By itself, the article prescribes nothing, and does not have the sense of a norm. All that it establishes is that the penal code is binding upon everyone. Such a provision might make sense in the country’s constitution, as it is understandable that a constitution would provide that laws are binding. However, what can be said in “constitutional” language cannot be said in “legislative” language because it is not normative in nature. As a rule, civil codes contain a provision to the effect that validly negotiated contracts are binding upon the contracting parties. The rule is perfectly understandable. But if two people sign a contract to state that the contracts are binding upon them, this provision will seem superfluous and even meaningless. The (5) IACtHR, Series C, N° 4, pp. 66-67; Series C, N° 5, p. 70. (6) IACtHR, Series C, N° 20, p. 34.