4 11. The private hearing held on July 4, 2009 at the Court venue.1 At such private hearing, the State, the Commission, and the representatives referred to the measures pending compliance with the Judgment. CONSIDERING: 1. That it is a power inherent in the judicial functions of the Court to monitor compliance with its judgments. 2. That Venezuela has been a State Party to the American Convention on Human Rights since August 9, 1977 and it acknowledged the binding jurisdiction of the Court on June 24, 1981. 3. That pursuant to Article 68(1) of the American Convention, “[t]he States Parties to the Convention undertake to comply with the judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties.” To that end, the States are required to guarantee the adoption at the domestic level of the measures ordered by the Court.2 4. That given the final and unappealable nature of the Court’s judgments, as established in Article 67 of the American Convention, said judgments are to be promptly and fully complied with by the State. 5. That the obligation to comply with the Court’s judgments conforms to a basic tenet of the law of the international responsibility of the States, as supported by international case law, under which the 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 of Treaties of 1969, domestic laws may not be invoked to justify non-fulfillment of preestablished international responsibility. The treaty obligations of States Parties are binding on all State powers and organs.3 1 Pursuant to Article 6(2) of the existing Rules of Procedure, the Court held a hearing with a commission of Judges made up of Cecilia Medina-Quiroga, President; Manuel E. Ventura-Robles; Leonardo A. Franco and Margarette May Macaulay. At said hearing there appeared Juan Pablo Albán on behalf of the Inter-American Commission; Liliana Ortega and Carlos Ayala-Corao, from the Comité de Familiares de Víctimas de los Sucesos de Febrero-Marzo de 1989 (COFAVIC), and Ariela Peralta, from the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), on behalf of the victims’ representatives; and Germán Saltrón-Negretti on behalf of the State. Cf. Case of Baena-Ricardo et al. v. Panama. Competence. Judgment of November 28, 2003. Series C No. 104, para. 131; Case of Cantoral-Huamaní and García-Santa Cruz v. Peru. Monitoring Compliance with Judgment. Order of the Inter-American Court of April 28, 2009, Considering clause 3; and Case of ChaparroÁlvarez and Lapo-Íñiguez v. Ecuador. Monitoring Compliance with Judgment. Order of the Court of April 29, 2009, Considering clause 3. 2 3 Cf. International Responsibility for the Promulgation and Enforcement of Laws in Violation of the Convention (Arts. 1 and 2 of the American Convention on Human Rights). Advisory Opinion OC-14/94 of December 9, 1994. Series A No. 14, para. 35; Case of Cantoral-Huamaní and García-Santa Cruz v. Peru. Monitoring Compliance with Judgment, supra note 1, Considering clause 5; and Case of Chaparro-Álvarez and Lapo-Íñiguez v. Ecuador. Monitoring Compliance with Judgment, supra note 1, Considering clause 5.