18 the inherent authority to determine the scope of its own competence (compétence de la competence/Kompetenz-Kompetez). 79) The Court must give an interpretation to the declaration of the State, as a whole, that is in accordance with the canons and practice of International Law in general, and with International Human Rights Law specifically, and which awards the greatest degree of protection to the human beings under its guardianship. 80) The Court cannot abdicate this prerogative, as it is a duty that the American Convention imposes upon it, requiring it to exercise its functions in accordance with Article 62(3) thereof. That provision reads that “[t]he jurisdiction of the Court shall comprise all cases concerning the interpretation and application of the provisions of this Convention that are submitted to it, provided that the States Parties to the case recognize or have recognized such jurisdiction, whether by special declaration pursuant to the preceding paragraphs, or by a special agreement”. 81) As this Tribunal has indicated in its judgments on jurisdiction in the Cases of Constitutional Court and Ivcher Bronstein: The jurisdiction of the Court cannot be contingent upon events extraneous to its own actions. The instruments consenting to the optional clause concerning recognition of the Court’s binding jurisdiction (Article 62(1) of the Convention) presuppose that the States submitting them accept the Court’s right to settle any controversy relative to its jurisdiction. An objection or any other action taken by the State for the purpose of somehow affecting the Court’s jurisdiction has no consequence whatever, as the Court retains the compétence de la compétence, as it is master of its own jurisdiction 8. 82) Interpreting the Convention in accordance with its object and purpose, the Court must act in a manner that preserves the integrity of the mechanism provided for in Article 62(1) of the Convention. It would be unacceptable to subordinate the said mechanism to restrictions that would render the system for the protection of human rights established in the Convention and, as a result, the Court’s jurisdictional role, inoperative. 83) As this Court has indicated in the Cases of Constitutional Court and Ivcher Bronstein [t]he States Parties to the Convention must guarantee compliance with its provisions and its effects (effet utile) within their own domestic laws. This principle applies not only to the substantive provisions of human right treaties (in other words, the clauses on the protected rights), but also to the procedural provisions, such as the one concerning recognition of the Tribunal’s contentious jurisdiction. That clause, essential to the efficacy of the mechanism of international protection, must be interpreted and applied in such a way that the guarantee that it establishes is truly practical and effective, given the special nature of human rights treaties [...] and their collective enforcement 9. 84) Article 31(1) of the 1969 Vienna Convention provides that 8 Constitutional Court Case. Competence. Judgment of September 24, 1999. Series C No. 55, para. 33 and Ivcher Bronstein Case. Competence. Judgment of September 24, 1999. Series C No. 54, para. 34. 9 Cf. Constitutional Court Case. Competence. Supra note 8, para. 36 and Ivcher Bronstein Case. Competence. Supra note 8, para. 37.