The State controls the means to verify acts occurring within its territory. Although the Commission has investigatory powers, it cannot exercise them within a State’s jurisdiction unless it has the cooperation of that State. 4 19. Consequently, the Commission believes it should remind Guatemala of its duty to assist the bodies of the inter-American human rights system in order to ensure that their functions in protecting human rights are properly performed, including its duty of furnishing such information as they may require. 20. The Commission will now analyze the admissibility requirements set forth in the American Convention. B. Competence of the Commission 21. The Commission has competence ratione materiae to hear this petition since it alleges violations of rights protected by the American Convention, to which the State of Guatemala is a party by reason of having ratified it on May 25, 1978. 22. The Commission has competence ratione personae to hear this petition since the identities of both the petitioners and the alleged victim satisfy the requirements set forth, respectively, in Articles 44 and 1(2) of the Convention. 23. The IACHR has competence ratione temporis to hear this petition since the obligation of respecting and ensuring the rights protected by the American Convention was already in force for the State on the date on which the incidents described in the petition allegedly occurred. 24. Finally, the Commission has competence ratione loci to hear this petition since it alleges violations of rights within the territory of the respondent state party. C. Admissibility Requirements of the Petition 1. Exhaustion of Domestic Remedies 25. Under Article 46(1)(a) of the Convention, for a petition to be admissible, all the remedies offered by domestic jurisdiction must first have been exhausted, in accordance with the principles of international law. 26. The petitioners claim that the alleged victim’s defense pursued all the remedies for challenging the first-instance ruling provided by Guatemala’s domestic law. They point out that on September 13, 1999 the Fourth Chamber of the Appeals Court dismissed the special appeal remedy; on June 20, 2000 the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice ruled that the appeal for annulment they filed was inadmissible; and on July 28, 2001 the Constitutional Court dismissed an amparo suit filed on behalf of Ronald Ernesto Raxacacó Reyes. In all these instances, the petitioners say, it was argued that the State of Guatemala violated the provisions of Article 4(2) of the Convention by extending the death penalty to crimes to which it was not applicable when Guatemala ratified the Convention. Consequently, the courts were asked not to apply capital punishment. 27. In contrast, although the State claimed that domestic remedies had not been exhausted, not only did it fail to indicate exactly which remedies were still unexhausted, 5 it also expressly 4 Inter-Am.Ct.H.R., Velásquez Rodríguez Case, Judgment of July 29, 1988, paragraphs 135 and 136; and IACHR, Report Nº 28/96, Case 11.297, Guatemala, October 16, 1996, paragraph 43. 5 A state claiming that a petitioner has failed to exhaust the remedies provided by domestic law has an obligation to identify the specific, available, effective resources in question. In this regard, see: Inter-Am.Ct.H.R., Loayza Tamayo Case, Preliminary Objections, Judgment of January 31, 1996, paragraph 40. 4