18. On December 19, 1996, the Commission directed notes to each of the parties communicating its decision to place itself at the disposition of the parties in this case for the purposes of seeking a friendly settlement. The Commission requested a response from the parties within 30 days. The petitioners responded on January 24, 1997. They stated their willingness to engage in friendly settlement negotiations if the State agreed to address several issues considered by the petitioners to be crucial to an acceptable friendly settlement. The response of the petitioners was sent to the State on February 6, 1997. 19. The State requested an extension of time to respond to the Commission's offer to place itself at the disposition of the parties for the purposes of seeking a friendly settlement. The Commission granted an extension of 30 days by letter dated February 5, 1997. 20. The Commission convoked hearings in this case on several different occasions. At each of these hearings, representatives of the State and the petitioners appeared before the Commission to argue questions of fact and law pertinent to the case. III. ANALYSIS OF ADMISSIBILITY A. The presentation of facts which tend to establish a violation 21. Pursuant to article 47(b) of the Convention, the Commission may find a petition inadmissible when it does not state facts that tend to establish a violation of the rights guaranteed by the Convention. The petitioners allege that extrajudicial executions, disappearances, assassination attempts, false judicial proceedings and threats have been carried out against the members of the Patriotic Union named as victims in this case in an attempt to eliminate the political party. The petitioners ask the Commission to conclude that the acts alleged constitute genocide, interpreting the American Convention in concordance with customary international law and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the "Convention on Genocide"). They then assert that the genocide implies violations of the specific articles of the American Convention. 22. The Convention on Genocide, which codifies customary international law on genocide,1 defines genocide as: any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.2 1 See Reservations to the Convention on Genocide, 1951 ICJ Rep. 15 (Advisory Opinion of 28 May); Restatement of the Law Third, Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States §702(a) and comment d (1987). 2 Opened for signature 9 Dec. 1948, 78 UNTS 277 (emphasis added). The State of Colombia has ratified the Convention on Genocide and is bound by that instrument. The Commission has the competence to interpret the American Convention in the light of the Convention on Genocide and customary international law. Article 29(b) of the Convention provides that the provisions of the Convention shall not be interpreted as "restricting the enjoyment or exercise of any right or freedom recognized by virtue of the laws of any State Party or by virtue of another convention to which one of the said states is a party." The Court has noted with favor that the Commission has interpreted this provision as providing the Commission with competence to invoke treaties other than the American Convention "regardless of their bilateral or multilateral character, or whether they have been adopted within the framework or under the auspices of the inter-American system." I/A Court H.R., "Other Treaties" Subject 3