Trade Union Confederation;12 (4) the Universidad del Norte de Colombia;13 (5) Human Rights in Practice;14 (6) Tara Melish, associate professor at the State University of New York, and (7) the Business and Human Rights Project of the University of Essex.15 11. On-site procedure. In an order of the acting President of February 23, 2016,16 it was decided to conduct an on-site procedure in the Federative Republic of Brazil owing to the contested facts that are the purpose of the litigation and taking into account the need to obtain specific evidence to decide the dispute. This decision was taken by the full Court in application of Article 58(a) and (d) of the Rules of Procedure. Thus, on June 6 and 7, 2016, a delegation from the Court17 conducted an on-site procedure in order to receive the statements of five presumed victims in this case and the statements for information purposes of five State officials responsible for combating slavery in Brazil. 12. Final written arguments and observations. On June 28, 2016, the representatives and the State presented their respective final written arguments and the Inter-American Commission forwarded its final written observations. 13. Observations of the parties and the Commission. The acting President granted the parties and the Commission a time frame for presenting any observations they deemed pertinent on the annexes forwarded by the State and the representatives with their final written arguments. On August 5 and 6, the State and the Commission, respectively, forwarded the requested observations. The representatives sent no observations within the respective time frame. 14. Deliberation of this case. The Court began deliberating this judgment on October 18, 2016. III JURISDICTION 15. The Inter-American Court has jurisdiction to hear this case pursuant to Article 62(3) of the Convention because Brazil has been a State Party to the American Convention since September 25, 1992, and accepted the contentious jurisdiction of the Court on December 10, 1998. IV PRELIMINARY OBJECTIONS 16. The State filed 10 preliminary objections in its answering brief. They related to: A. Inadmissibility of the submission of the case to the Court owing to the publication of the Merits Report by the Commission; B. Lack of jurisdiction ratione personae, with regard to unidentified presumed victims, those who were identified but had not granted a power of attorney, and those who did not appear in the Commission’s Merits Report or who were not 12 The brief was signed by Sharan Burrow. The brief was signed by Cindy Hawkins Rada, Maira Kleber Sierra, ShirLaw Llain Arenilla and Andrea Alejandra Ariza Lascarro. 13 14 The brief was signed by Hellen Duffy. 15 The brief was signed by Sheldon Leader and Anil Yilmaz-Vastardis. Order concerning the on-site procedure of February 23, 2016, available at: http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/ asuntos/ trabajadores_23_02_16.pdf 16 The Court’s delegation that conducted the on-site procedure consisted of Judge Eduardo Ferrer Mac-Gregor Poisot, acting President in this case, and Judges Eugenio Raul Zaffaroni and Patricio Pazmiño Freire; Pablo Saavedra Alessandri, Secretary of the Court, and Carlos E. Gaio, a lawyer from the Court’s Secretariat. 17 8