rights Chile undertook to respect and ensure. As for the State, Chile has been a party to the American Convention since August 21, 1990 the date on which its instrument of ratification was deposited. The Commission thus has competence ratione personae to examine the petition. 22. The Commission has competence ratione loci to examine the petition because the violations of Convention-protected rights are alleged to have occurred within the territory of a State party to the Convention. 23. The Commission has competence ratione temporis because the obligation to respect and ensure the rights protected in the American Convention was already binding upon the State at the time the events alleged in the petition occurred. 3 The petitioners are not alleging violations of the American Convention for Mr. Almonacid Arellana's murder, which has occurred prior to Chile's ratification of the Convention. 24 Finally, the Commission has competence ratione materiae, because the petition denounces violations of human rights protected by the American Convention. B. 1. Admissibility requirements Exhaustion of the remedies under domestic law 25. Under Article 46(1) of the American Convention, one of the requirements that must be met for a petition to be admissible is that the remedies under a State's domestic laws have been pursued and exhausted. 26. The State did not raise any preliminary objections alleging a failure to exhaust domestic remedies. The Commission therefore considers that the Chilean State did not claim during the initial proceedings on this petition the failure to exhaust the remedies under domestic law. 27. Time and time again the Inter-American Court has held that in order to be timely, the objection asserting failure to exhaust domestic remedies must be raised during the first stages of the proceedings; otherwise, it is presumed that the interested State has tacitly waived the use of that objection. 4 28. Therefore, the Inter-American Commission considers that in this matter, Chile waived the objection asserting failure to exhaust domestic remedies, as it did not raise that objection, either within the established time periods or at the first opportunity it had during the proceedings, which was in its response to the petition that initiated the process. 2. Time period for lodging a petition 29. With regard to the petition under study, the IACHR has established that Chile tacitly waived its right to raise the objection asserting failure to exhaust domestic remedies. Therefore, the requirement set forth in Article 46(1)(b) of the American Convention is not applicable. However, the Convention’s requirement that domestic remedies be exhausted is independent of the requirement that the petition be lodged within six months following the judgment exhausting domestic jurisdiction. Therefore, the Inter-American Commission must determine whether the petition was lodged within a reasonable time. The Commission notes that the original petition of August 27, 1998 was received on September 15, 1998. Likewise, the most recent ruling by a 3 Chile deposited its instrument of ratification of the Convention on August 21, 1990. 4 See, for example, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni Community Case, Nicaragua, Judgment on Preliminary Objections, February 1, 2000 par. 53. In that judgment, the Inter-American Court held that "in order to validly oppose the admissibility of the petition…. The State should have expressly and in a timely manner invoked the rule that domestic remedies should be exhausted.” (emphasis in the original). Idem, par. 54. 4