Therefore, the said provisions of the Convention reveal that the Court has jurisdiction
with regard to an international legal instrument; that the States Parties must comply
with its rulings in the respective cases submitted to its consideration, 11 and that if they
do not comply with them, such violations of the international obligation to obey them
must be indicated to an international instance; namely, the General Assembly of the
Organization of American States. Thus, the Court’s sphere of action is the international
sphere.
In sum, the undersigned has accepted the elimination of the word “internationally”
from the aforementioned operative paragraphs and with regard to the State's
responsibility declared by the Court in the understanding that this responsibility can
only be international.
Eduardo Vio Grossi
Judge
Pablo Saavedra Alessandri
Secretary
This wording is no different from that generally used in international law expressed, in particular, in
the provisions of Article 50 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice: “The decision of the Court has
no binding force except between the parties and in respect of that particular case.” Therefore, regarding
States that are not parties to a conflict, case law is a subsidiary source of international law. Article 38.1.d of
the said Statute indicates that: “The Court, whose function is to decide in accordance with international law
such disputes as are submitted to it, shall apply: subject to the provisions of Article 59, judicial decisions and
the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations, as subsidiary means for the
determination of rules of law.” On this basis, the Court’s judgments are not of a supra-national nature; in
other words, they are not directly applicable or enforceable in the territory of the States Parties to the
Convention; rather, the action of the State is required to that end.
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