4 10. An organ of international protection of human rights should not, in my view, start from the premise that a law, by its own existence, “has not yet affected” the protected rights, it being therefore necessary to wait for measures of execution which bring about the occurrence of a damage. It should not do so with all the more reason when the whole evolution of the juridical order of protection 13 is oriented and inclined nowadays clearly in another sense. The decision of the Court on this specific point, based upon the obiter dictum referred to of its Advisory Opinion OC-14/94, conflicts, in my view, with the letter and spirit of Article 62(1) and (3) of the American Convention, by virtue of which the contentious jurisdiction of the Court extends to all cases concerning the interpretation and application of the provisions of the Convention. These provisions include the duties of the States Parties to guarantee the recognized rights and to harmonize their domestic law with the norms of the Convention so as to give effect to those rights. 11. Accordingly, the determination of the incompatibility of an internal or domestic law with the Convention is not an exclusive prerogative of the exercise of the advisory jurisdiction of the Court. The difference lies in that, in the exercise of the advisory jurisdiction (Article 64(2) of the Convention), the Court may deliver opinions on the incompatibility or otherwise of a domestic law (and as well of a draft law 14 ) with the Convention in abstracto, while in the exercise of the contentious jurisdiction the Court may determine, at the request of a party, the incompatibility or otherwise of a domestic law with the Convention in the circumstances of the concrete case. The American Convention effectively authorizes the Court, in the exercise of its contentious jurisdiction, to determine whether a law, impugned by the complainant party, and which by its own existence affects the protected rights, is or not contrary to the American Convention on Human Rights. The Court has the competence ratione materiae, and should, thus, have proceeded to this determination and to the establishment of its juridical consequences. Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade Judge Manuel E. Ventura-Robles Secretary 13 Which corresponds to the evolution of the notion of victim in the international law of human rights; cf. Recueil des Cours de l'Académie de Droit International de La Haye, 1987, vol. 202, pp. 243299. 14 As admitted by the Inter-American Court in its Advisory Opinion (on the Proposed Amendments to the Naturalization Provisions of the Constitution of Costa Rica, OC-4/84), of 19 January 1984 (paras. 22-29).