11 A treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose. […] 38. Article 62(1) of the American Convention stipulates that a State Party may, upon depositing its instrument of ratification or adherence to this Convention, or at any subsequent time, declare “that it recognizes as binding, ipso facto, and not requiring any special agreement, the jurisdiction of the Court on all matters relating to the interpretation or application of this Convention.” There is no provision in the Convention that expressly permits the States Parties to withdraw their declaration of recognition of the Court’s binding jurisdiction. Nor does the instrument in which Peru recognizes the Court’s jurisdiction, dated January 21, 1981, allow for that possibility. 39. An interpretation of the Convention done “in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in light of its object and purpose” leads this Court to the view that a State Party to the American Convention can only release itself of its obligations under the Convention by following the provisions that the treaty itself stipulates. In the instant case, under the Convention, the only avenue the State has to disengage itself from the Court’s binding contentious jurisdiction is to denounce the Convention as a whole (cf. infra 45, 49); if this happens, then the denunciation will only have effect if done in accordance with Article 78, which requires one year’s advance notice. 40. Article 29(a) of the American Convention provides that no provision of the Convention shall be interpreted as permitting any State Party, group, or person to suppress the enjoyment or exercise of the rights and freedoms recognized in the Convention or to restrict them to a greater extent than is provided for therein. Any interpretation of the Convention that allows a State Party to withdraw its recognition of the Court’s binding jurisdiction, as Peru would in the instant case, would imply suppression of the exercise of the rights and freedoms recognized in the Convention, would be contrary to its object and purpose as a human rights treaty, and would deprive all the Convention’s beneficiaries of the additional guarantee of protection of their human rights that the Convention’s jurisdictional body affords. 41. The American Convention and the other human rights treaties are inspired by a set of higher common values (centered around the protection of the human person), are endowed with specific supervisory mechanisms, are applied as a collective guarantee, embody essentially objective obligations, and have a special character that sets them apart from other treaties. The latter govern mutual interests between and among the States Parties and are applied by them, with all the juridical consequences that follow therefrom for the international and domestic legal systems. 42. In its Advisory Opinion OC-2/82, of September 24, 1982, titled The Effect of Reservations on the Entry into Force of the American Convention on Human Rights (Arts. 74 and 75), the Court found that: … modern human rights treaties in general, and the American Convention in particular, are not multilateral treaties of the traditional type concluded to accomplish the reciprocal exchange of rights for the mutual benefit of the contracting States. Their object and purpose is the protection of the basic rights of individual human beings irrespective of their nationality, both against the State of their nationality and all other contracting States. In concluding these human rights treaties, the States can be deemed to submit

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