6 the application, filing preliminary objections and designating its agents. was also advised that it had the right to designate an ad hoc judge. The State 20. On May 17, 1999, the Ambassador of Peru in Costa Rica informed the Court that the application in this case had been received on May 12 of that year at the Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru. 21. On June 8, 1999, the State designated Mr. Marío Federico Cavagnaro Basile as agent and Mr. Sergio Tapia Tapia as alternate agent. It indicated the address where all communications relative to the case would be received. 22. On June 11, 1999, the State presented a brief wherein it listed what it considered to be discrepancies regarding the time period for designating an ad hoc judge and requested a reasonable extension of the time limit given for that purpose. An extension was given so that the new time limit expired on July 11, 1999. 23. On August 4, 1999, the Minister and Counselor of Peru’s Embassy in Costa Rica appeared before the Inter-American Court in San Jose, Costa Rica, to return the application filed in the Ivcher Bronstein case and its attachments. Said officials delivered a note to the Secretariat, dated August 2, 1999, and signed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru, which states the following: a. By Legislative Resolution No. 27152, dated July 8, 1999… the Congress of the Republic approved the withdrawal of [Peru’s] recognition of the contentious jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. b. On July 9, 1999, the Government of the Republic of Peru deposited with the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States the instrument wherein it declares that, pursuant to the American Convention on Human Rights, the Republic of Peru is withdrawing the declaration consenting to the optional clause concerning recognition of the contentious jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights… c. … The withdrawal of recognition of the Court’s contentious jurisdiction takes immediate effect as of the date on which that instrument is deposited with the General Secretariat of the OAS, in other words, July 9, 1999, and applies to all cases in which Peru has not answered the application filed with the Court. Lastly, in that same brief the State wrote that “notification contained in note CDH11,762/002, dated May 10, 1999, concerns a case in which that Honorable Court is no longer competent to consider the applications filed against the Republic of Peru under the contentious jurisdiction provided for in the American Convention on Human Rights.” 24. On September 10, 1999, the Commission submitted its observations concerning Peru’s return of the application and its attachments. In its brief, the Commission stated the following: a. The Court asserted jurisdiction to consider the instant case as of March 31, 1999, the dated on which the Commission filed the application. Peru’s purported “withdrawal” of its recognition of the Court’s contentious jurisdiction on July 9, 1999, and its return of the application and its attachments on August 4, 1999, have no effect whatever on the Court’s exercise of jurisdiction in the instant case; b. A unilateral action by a State cannot divest an international court of jurisdiction it has already asserted; the American Convention contains no