I INTRODUCTION OF THE CASE AND PURPOSE OF THE DISPUTE 1. On July 29, 2011, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter the “Inter-American Commission” or “the Commission”) submitted a brief to the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court (hereinafter “brief submitting the case”), under the provisions of Articles 51 and 61 of the Convention, against the State of Costa Rica (hereinafter “the State” or “Costa Rica”) in relation to case 12,361. The initial petition was submitted to the Commission on January 19, 2001, by Gerardo Trejos Salas. On March 11, 2004 the InterAmerican Commission approved Admissibility Report No 25/04. 3 On July 14, 2010, the Commission approved Report on Merits No. 85/10, 4 under the terms of Article 50 of the American Convention (hereinafter also “the Merits Report” or “Report No. 85/10”), in which it made a number of recommendations to the State. Having granted the State three extensions to allow it to comply with the said recommendations, the Commission decided to submit the case to the Court. The Commission designated Rodrigo Escobar Gil, Commissioner, and Santiago A. Canton, then Executive Secretary, as delegates and appointed Elizabeth Abi-Mershed, Deputy Executive Secretary, and the lawyers Silvia Serrano Guzmán, Isabel Madariaga, Fiorella Melzi and Rosa Velorio as legal advisers. 2. The Commission indicated that this case concerned alleged human rights violations resulting from the presumed general prohibition of the practice of in vitro fertilization (hereinafter “IVF”), which had been in effect in Costa Rica since 2000, following a ruling of the Constitutional Chamber of the Costa Rican Supreme Court of Justice (hereinafter “Constitutional Chamber”). Among other aspects, the Commission alleged that this absolute prohibition constituted arbitrary interference in the right to private life and the right to found a family. It further alleged that the prohibition violated the right to equality of the victims, inasmuch as the State had denied them access to a treatment that would have enabled them to overcome their disadvantage with regard to the possibility of having biological children. It also argued that this ban had a disproportionate impact on women. 3. The Commission asked the Court to declare the international responsibility of the Costa Rican State for the violation of Articles 11(2), 17(2) and 24 of the American Convention, in relation to Articles 1(1) and 2 of this instrument, to the detriment of Gretel Artavia Murillo, Miguel Mejías Carballo, Andrea Bianchi Bruno, German Alberto Moreno Valencia, Ana Cristina Castillo León, Enrique Acuña Cartín, Ileana Henchoz Bolaños, Miguel Antonio Yamuni Zeledón, Claudia María Carro Maklouf, Víctor Hugo Sanabria León, Karen Espinoza Vindas, Héctor Jiménez Acuña, Maria del Socorro Calderón P., Joaquina Arroyo Fonseca, Geovanni Antonio Vega, Carlos E. Vargas Solórzano, Julieta González Ledezma and Oriester Rojas Carranza. 3 In this Report the Inter-American Commission declared admissible the petition regarding the alleged violation of Articles 11, 17 and 24 of the American Convention, in relation to Articles 1(1) and 2 thereof. Cf. Admissibility Report No. 25/04, Case 12,361, Ana Victoria Sánchez Villalobos et al., Costa Rica, March 11, 2004 (file of attachments to the pleadings and motions brief of the representative Gerardo Trejos, tome I, annex 2, folios 3900 to 3914). In this report, the Commission declared that the “complaint was inadmissible with regard to the firms “Costa Rica Ultrasonografía S.A. and the Instituto Costarricense de Fertilidad.” 4 Merits Report No. 85/10, Case No. 12,361, Gretel Artavia Murillo et al. v. Costa Rica, July 14, 2010 (merits file, folios 7 to 37).