3 From the Inter-American Court’s perspective, the only definitive aspect is its own determination of whether the respondent State’s administrative acts and practices, domestic laws, and decisions of domestic courts are compatible with the American Convention. No one questions the principle of the subsidiary nature of the international jurisdiction, which relates specifically to the mechanisms of protection; nor should it be forgotten that, at the substantive level, in the domain of protection, the norms of the international and domestic legal systems are in constant interaction, to the benefit of the human beings who are protected.3 Based on the foregoing, I dissent with regard to the said fifteenth operative paragraph, because the Court should have established the amount of the reparation for loss of earnings based on its own jurisdiction and not by accepting the criteria of a domestic court that serves other jurisdictional purposes. The fact that the InterAmerican Court, which has assumed jurisdiction in a case, agrees with a specific amount is insufficient reason for it to forego determining the amount of a loss of potential earnings motu propio and in keeping with the norms and practices of international human rights law, and for it to endorse the decision of a court with jurisdiction in domestic matters that interprets and applies norms other than the American Convention on Human Rights. The subsidiary nature lies precisely in the empowerment of a new international jurisdiction, the inter-American jurisdiction for the protection of human rights, and not in the adoption of the criteria of another jurisdiction – the domestic jurisdiction – that ceased to exercise its functions when the international jurisdiction was empowered. Consequently, the principle of subordination was not clearly applied by the majority of the judges in the instant case. Manuel E. Ventura Robles Judge Pablo Saavedra Alessandri Secretary 3 Las Palmeras v. Colombia. Merits. Judgment of December 6, 2001. Series C No. 90. Joint separate opinion of Judges A.A. Cançado Trindade and M. Pacheco Gómez, paras. 2 to 6.