3 Clodolia Tenicela Tello and 33 other victims. It reported that on March 5, 2010 the Office of the Third Criminal Prosecutor of Huancayo filed a formal accusation against Danilo Nicolás Gonzales Campana, Boris Adolfo Rojas Esquivel et al. with the crime of offense against personal liberty/kidnapping. It stated that on May 26, 2010 the First Criminal Court of Huancayo ordered a total of seventy-six proceedings for gathering evidence, without specifying their nature. 13. The State indicated that on May 28, 2010 “the First Criminal Court of Huancayo declared the proceedings to be COMPLEX owing, inter alia, to the subject matter, to the quantity of means of evidence to be used or collected, to the concourse of events, and to the multiplicity of suspects and victims.” It indicated that on July 3, 2010 a summons had been published to the members of the family of Cory Tenicela Tello “advising them that a criminal charge has been brought for crimes against humanity, including murder, and asking them to appear and declare before the court.” 14. The State indicated that criminal proceedings for the alleged forced disappearance of Cory Tenicela were being conducted in accordance with due process for the purpose of shedding light on the events and trying and punishing the perpetrators. It argued that the complexity of the events justified the fact that the investigatory phase was ongoing. It pointed out that a final judgment on the alleged disappearance of Ms. Tenicela Tello have not been issued and asked the IACHR to declare the petition inadmissible under Articles 46(1)(a) and 48(1)(b) of the Convention. 15. Finally, the State indicated that the petitioners had not supported their claim of a violation under Article 13 of the Convention. IV. ANALYSIS OF COMPETENCE AND ADMISSIBILITY A. Competence ratione personae, ratione loci, ratione temporis, and ratione materiae of the Commission 16. The petitioners are empowered by Article 44 of the Convention to submit complaints to the Commission. The alleged victim is an individual who was under the jurisdiction of the Peruvian State on the date of the alleged events. For its part, Peru ratified the American Convention on July 28, 1978. Consequently, the Commission is competent ratione personae to hear the petition. 17. The Commission is competent ratione loci to hear the petition, since it contains allegations of violations of rights protected by the American Convention that allegedly took place within the territory of a state party to that treaty. 18. In addition, the Commission is competent ratione temporis because the obligation to respect and guarantee the rights protected by the American Convention was already in force for the State at the time of the events alleged in the petition. 19. Finally, the Commission is competent ratione materiae because the petition alleges the violation of the American Convention and as will be explained further, it describes facts that could constitute violations of rights protected by the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons (ICFDP), which instrument of ratification was deposited by Peru on February 13, 2002. B. Exhaustion of domestic remedies 20. Article 46(1)(a) of the American Convention provides that, in order for a petition presented to the Inter-American Commission under Article 44 of the Convention to be admitted, the remedies under domestic law must have been pursued and exhausted in accordance with generally recognized principles of international law. This requirement was established to allow national authorities the opportunity to consider alleged violations of protected rights and, if applicable, resolve such matters before they might be heard by an international body.