handed down in the criminal proceedings. Consequently, they asked the Court to reject the objection. 21. The Commission clarified that, in this case, the Court was not being asked to declare the international responsibility of the State based on the ICPPT in relation to instantaneous acts that had occurred before Bolivia was a party to that treaty. The Commission stressed that it considered that the State had violated Articles 1,6 and 8 of the ICPPT only after this instrument had come into force for the State, exclusively in relation to the obligation to investigate and to punish the reported acts of torture. Therefore, it considered that the preliminary objection filed by the State was inadmissible and that the State’s argument that it had investigated the complaints of torture satisfactorily corresponded to the merits of the case and, therefore, were not of a preliminary nature. B. Considerations of the Court 22. The State ratified the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture on August 26, 2006, and deposited the instrument of ratification on November 21, 2006. The treaty entered into force for Bolivia, pursuant to the terms of its article 22, on December 21, 2006. Based on this and on the principle of non-retroactivity, codified in Article 28 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties,11 the Court is unable to exercise its contentious jurisdiction with regard to acts or facts that took place before the date on which a treaty whose violation is alleged entered into force for the State.12 23. On this basis, the Court finds that it does not have jurisdiction to rule on the torture to which the alleged victims were allegedly subjected based on the ICPPT, but rather as a possible violation of Article 5 of the American Convention on Human Rights. In addition, as it has in other cases,13 the Court determines that it does have temporal jurisdiction to examine the alleged violation of Articles 1, 6 and 8 of the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture in relation to the alleged failure to investigate the facts after December 21, 2006, which has been argued by both the Commission and the representatives in this case. Based on the foregoing, the Court rejects the preliminary objection filed by the State. V PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS A. Inclusion of absent alleged victims 24. The State argued that the inclusion of six of the alleged victims14 on the list presented in the Commission’s Merits Report was contrary to the principles of equality of arms and adversariality. It indicated that the initial petition lodged before the Commission had been submitted on behalf of 26 individuals, but had only been signed by 12 of them. It also alleged that 11 Article 28: “Unless a different intention appears from the treaty or is otherwise established, its provisions do not bind a party in relation to any act or fact which took place or any situation which ceased to exist before the date of the entry into force of the treaty with respect to that party.” 12 Cf. Case of the Serrano Cruz Sisters v. El Salvador. Preliminary objections. Judgment of November 23, 2004. Series C No. 118, para. 66, and Case of the Julien Grisonas Family v. Argentina. Preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of September 23, 2021. Series C No. 437, para. 22. Cf. Case of the Gómez Paquiyauri Brothers v. Peru. Merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of July 8, 2004. Series C No. 110, para. 196, and Case of the Julien Grisonas Family v. Argentina, supra, para. 27. 13 In its brief filing preliminary objections, the State indicated that this referred to seven alleged victims; however, when listing them, it only mentioned six names: Edwin Rodríguez Alarcón, Elacio Peña Córdoba, Alfredo Bazán y Rosas (or José Miguel Abildo Díaz), Julia Mamanu Mamani, Carlos Enrique Castro Ramírez and Freddy Cáceres Castro. 14 8