15 48. Accordingly, the Court dismisses this preliminary objection raised by the State. V PRELIMINARY QUESTION 49. Two of the representatives argued that the State had offered several tacit or explicit recognitions of international responsibility, and that the State's defense submitted to the Court would violate the principle of estoppel in the instant case. Therefore the Court will evaluate the representatives’ and the State’s arguments in this regard and give its views on: (i) whether the State’s actions during the procedure before the Commission and the Court could have constituted a “tacit” or “explicit” recognition, and (ii) whether the doctrine of estoppel may apply in the instant case. 50. Representatives Vega and Sommer pointed to the friendly settlement procedure with the Inter-American Commission, arguing that the State had invoked it as a delaying tactic. They later argued that Argentina “undertook unilateral initiatives to recognize its international responsibility for failing to adapt its military judicial processes to inter-American human rights standards in Argentina in the context of the instant case, when it had first acquiesced to the friendly settlement process” before the Inter-American Commission. This act of recognition “was consolidated by another unilateral initiative when the State, in the exercise of its power, submitted legislative arguments concerning the need to amend the legal system of military justice with reference to the Argüelles case and the Correa Belisle case[.] This is why the scope of the estoppel doctrine in international law needs to be understood insofar as it is applicable to the instant case. The State may acknowledge that certain provisions in the Military Code of Justice that was in effect at the time contained irregularities or incompatibilities with international human rights standards on due process and the right to a fair trial; however, such a State cannot then arbitrarily deny the existence of the facts and violations in later briefs, given that it had earlier displayed actions contrary to its current stance[. Thus,] the doctrine of estoppel should apply to legislative actions starting in 2008.” 51. In their final written pleadings, representatives De Vita and Cueto also claimed that the State had offered “explicit recognition” in at least the following ways: (i) when it requested “a time extension to implement the reparations recommended” by the Inter-American Commission, which in fact constituted an “acquiescence” by the State to the Commission’s recommendations; (ii) at the hearing, when it admitted that it had not accepted responsibility in the instant case in view of the amounts being requested as redress; (iii) when it pointed to the Argüelles case at the time it submitted the congressional draft bill on the Military Code of Justice, and (iv) on March 5, 2004 at Commission headquarters, when it signed the opening notice to begin the dialog and “recognized” its failure to adapt military provisions to international standards of human rights. 52. The State, in turn, underscored that it had applied the friendly settlements “as a tool for institutional improvement that has brought many significant results, most notably, that the Military Code of Justice was repealed [...] and replaced with a system for the administration of justice and military discipline that fully respects relevant international standards currently in place. It should also be noted […] that the friendly settlement process undertaken in the instant case was intended most specifically to bring about comprehensive reform to the rules of military justice; however, in 2005 the petitioners pressed for more progress primarily in the question of possible pecuniary redress, until in 2007, three years after the process formally began [...], the petitioners notif[ied] the Commission that the process should be closed and calling for a Report on the Merits.” The State also emphasized that “in no sense can the rejection of an exorbitant claim for redress be construed [...] as