9
Community without a prior agreement or understanding with the Commission and
the Court in that regard”. The Commission attached an April 12, 2000 brief by James
Anaya, legal representative of the Community, to Jorge E. Taiana, Executive
Secretary of the Commission, which included as an annex the report prepared by
María Luisa Acosta Castellón on the meeting between officials of the State and the
Awas Tingni Community, held on March 30 and 31, 2000, in the offices of the
Nicaraguan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
49.
On April 14, 2000, the Secretariat gave the State 30 days within which to
submit its comments to the aforementioned brief. On May 10 of that same year,
Nicaragua stated that it had not applied any pressure at all on the Community nor
had it interfered in the Community’s relations with its legal representatives. The
State also indicated its willingness to seek a friendly settlement through direct and
exclusive conversations with the Commission. It submitted an attached document
dated February 3, 2000, with the title “record of appointment of the representatives
of the inhabitants who constitute the Mayagna ethnic group of the Community of
Awas Tingni, Municipality of Wa[s]pam, Río Coco, RAAN”.
50.
On May 10, 2000, the Commission sent a brief in which it stated that
Nicaragua, in its reply to the application, had not offered witnesses nor expert
witnesses. It also added that the State had not argued that force majeure or other
reasons justified admitting evidence not listed in its reply, and for this reason the
Commission requested that the Court declare the calling of witnesses and expert
witnesses offered by Nicaragua inadmissible (supra para. 47).
51.
On June 1, 2000, the Secretariat requested that the State submit, no later
than June 15 of that year, the grounds for or comments on its offering of witnesses
and expert witnesses, for the President to consider their admissibility. In its August
18, 2000 Order, the Court reiterated its request for the State to submit the grounds
for the extemporaneous proposal of witnesses and expert witnesses (supra para.
47); the Court also requested that the State specify which persons were offered as
witnesses and which as expert witnesses.
52.
On May 31, 2000, the Hutchins, Soroka & Dionne law firm submitted an
amicus curiae brief in English, on behalf of the Mohawks Indigenous Community of
Akwesasne.
53.
On September 5, 2000, the State submitted a brief in which it stated that the
persons listed in its April 7, 2000 brief (supra para. 47) had been offered as expert
witnesses. The following day the Secretariat, under instructions by the President,
asked the Commission to send its observations to that brief, as well as its definitive
list of witnesses and expert witnesses by September 12, 2000.
54.
On September 12, 2000, the Commission sent a note in which it upheld its
request for the appointment of expert witnesses offered by the State to be declared
inadmissible, since the State did not give reasons to substantiate the
extemporaneous proposal. In that same note, the Commission gave the definitive
list of its witnesses and expert witnesses, including as an expert witness Theodore
Macdonald Jr., who in the application had been offered as a witness.
55.
In his September 14, 2000 Order, the President decided that the offer of
evidence made by the State on April 7, 2000 (supra para. 47) was time-barred;
however, as evidence to facilitate adjudication of the case, in accordance with article
44(1) of the Rules of Procedure, the President summoned Marco Antonio Centeno
Caffarena to come before the Court as witness. The President also rejected the