10 31. The Court must settle the question of Peru’s purported withdrawal of its declaration recognizing the contentious jurisdiction of the Court and of its legal effects. The Inter-American Court, as with any court or tribunal, has the inherent authority to determine the scope of its own competence (compétence de la compétence/Kompetenz-Kompetenz). 32. The Court cannot abdicate this prerogative, as it is a duty that the Convention imposes upon the it, requiring it to exercise its functions in accordance with Article 62(3) thereof. That provision reads as follows: The jurisdiction of the Court shall comprise all cases concerning the interpretation and application of the provisions of this Convention that are submitted to it, provided that the States Parties to the case recognize or have recognized such jurisdiction, whether by special declaration pursuant to the preceding paragraphs, or by a special agreement. 33. The jurisdiction of the Court cannot be contingent upon events extraneous to its own actions. The instruments consenting to the optional clause concerning recognition of the Court’s binding jurisdiction (Article 62(1) of the Convention) presuppose that the States submitting them accept the Court’s right to settle any controversy relative to its jurisdiction. An objection or any other action taken by the State for the purpose of somehow affecting the Court’s jurisdiction has no consequence whatever, as the Court retains the compétence de la compétence, as it is master of its own jurisdiction. 34. Interpreting the Convention in accordance with its object and purpose (cf., infra 38), the Court must act in a manner that preserves the integrity of the mechanism provided for in Article 62(1) of the Convention. That mechanism cannot be subordinated to any restrictions that the respondent State might add to the terms of its recognition of the Court’s binding jurisdiction, as that would adversely affect the efficacy of the mechanism and could obstruct its future development. 35. Recognition of the Court’s binding jurisdiction is an ironclad clause to which there can be no limitations except those expressly provided for in Article 62(1) of the American Convention. Because the clause is so fundamental to the operation of the Convention’s system of protection, it cannot be at the mercy of limitations not already stipulated but invoked by States Parties for internal reasons. 36. The States Parties to the Convention must guarantee compliance with its provisions and its effects (effet utile) within their own domestic laws. This principle applies not only to the substantive provisions of human rights treaties (in other words, the clauses on the protected rights), but also to the procedural provisions, such as the one concerning recognition of the Tribunal’s contentious jurisdiction.1 That clause, essential to the efficacy of the mechanism of international protection, must be interpreted and applied in such a way that the guarantee that it establishes is truly practical and effective, given the special nature of human rights treaties (cf. infra 41 to 44) and their collective enforcement. 37. Article 31(1) of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (hereinafter “the Vienna Convention”) provides that: 1. European Commission of Human Rights, Applications No. 15299/89, 15300/89 and 15318/89, Chrysostomos et al. v. Turkey (1991), Decisions and Reports, Strasbourg, C. E., [1991] vol. 68, pp. 216253.