enables States to make any reservation [...] provided that it is not incompatible with its
object and purpose.” It indicated that “the reservation invoked is also applicable to Article
25” of the American Convention, insofar as “the object and purpose of the [reservation]
presupposes the sovereignty of the State.” Therefore, the State argued that the Court “does
not have jurisdiction to examine the Commission’s claims regarding the method of payment
of the compensation ordered by the domestic judicial system.”
33.
The Commission argued that the Report on Admissibility “did not include among the
rights potentially infringed that relating to Article 21 of the Convention.” It added that “the
State's argument to consider ‘extendable’ the interpretation of the reservation [...] to any
other article of the Convention, in addition to presenting a clear lack of legal certainty, has
no basis whatsoever in international law.” The Commission also noted that “when examining
the merits of the case it did not ‘reintroduce’ any argument concerning Article 21 of the
Convention,” therefore “it did not analyze at any point the ‘economic policy’ of the State,
rather, it analyzed the [alleged] partial, delayed and thus ineffective decision issued by
[the] judicial authorities.”
34.
The representatives argued that “the assignation of the reservation [made] by the
State when it ratified the American Convention should not be extended.” They indicated that
“the minimal compensation granted” is not the subject of debate, nor is “the repeal of [the]
exchange policy.” They stated that the matter under consideration “is whether effective
judicial protection [...] consists of having to wait for 25 years to receive comprehensive
reparation.” They considered that it would have been important “for the State, when filing
[the preliminary] objection, to have specified the content and scope that it sought to grant
to the concept of the Government’s economic policy’ in relation to the case.” They added
that the State “has failed to establish the required limits to make it possible to understand
how the reserve invoked should apply in this case.” In other words, “it has not
demonstrated why the facts denounced affect[ed] the broader issue of the national
economic policy referred to in the reservation.” Finally, the representatives argued that
“invoking a reservation whose interpretation does not provide certainty regarding the
limitation of rights, cannot result in the limitation of [this] Court’s jurisdiction.”
Considerations of the Court
35.
With regard to the arguments presented by the parties, the Court notes that there
are two disputes, namely: i) the extension of the reservation made to Article 21 of the
American Convention to the arguments presented by the Inter-American Commission in
relation to Article 25 thereof, and ii) the direct application of the reservation to the
arguments made by the representatives in relation to the alleged violation of the right to
property in the instant case. In this regard, the Court deems it necessary to define the
scope of the reservation made by the State of Argentina in order to determine whether it is
possible to extend it to other articles of the Convention, and to decide whether it is
applicable to this case.
36.
First, the Court notes that the text of the reservation made by Argentina establishes
the following:28
28
In the instrument of ratification dated August 14, 1984, and deposited with the General Secretariat of the
OAS on September 5, 1984, the Government of Argentina recognizes the competence of the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights and the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for an
indeterminate period and on condition of reciprocity on all cases related to the interpretation or application of the
American Convention, with the partial reservation and bearing in mind the interpretative statements contained in
the instrument of ratification.
12