before the Court, either at the domestic level or before the Inter-American System for the promotion and protection of human rights.” The President has indicated that “the Rules of Procedure do not establish as grounds for objection the fact that an expert witness has filed a petition in another case before the Inter-American System for the protection of human rights.”4 8. The President later analyzed, in Considering clauses 33 to 38 of his Order, whether the subject of Alberto Bovino’s expert opinion affects the public order of the Inter-American System, and found it admissible to allow his testimony. Furthermore, the President indicated that the expert opinion will be assessed at the appropriate opportunity, within the context of the existing body of evidence and under the rules of sound judgment. 9. Upon lodging an appeal against the decision of the President to dismiss the aforementioned objection, the State presented the following arguments: a) “[W]hile it is true that it has not been established in the current proceedings that Mr. Bovino is or has been a representative of an alleged victim of the facts of the case before this Court - as stipulated in Article 48(1)(b) of its Rules of Procedure - the fact remains that the ultimate aim of this norm lies precisely in safeguarding the due impartiality that ought to govern the comportment of expert witnesses; preventing the involvement, in that capacity, of those who might hold a particular interest in the outcome of the case.”; b) “[D]espite failing to strictly meet the situation contained in the regulatory standard, its aim is nevertheless distorted when Mr. Bovino participates in two international proceedings that - though diverse in the facts being analyzed, the persons involved, and their contexts – amount to a situation in which the discussion of identical issues of ‘pure law’ relating to the problem of the second instance in criminal matters is permitted.”; c) The Court “should dispense with a strictly literal interpretation, demanding that fact patterns be identical, when, though the facts may be different, they allow for the analysis of identical points of law.” The State refers to the interpretation of treaties, citing the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. It affirms that in the present case, in accordance with teleological criteria, the interpretation which most conforms to the object and aim of the treaty “would be the one concerned with preserving the due impartiality that ought to guide the actions of expert witnesses.”; d) There are “serious reasons to doubt whether Mr. Bovino would act with impartiality as an expert witness.” In this regard, the State indicated that “both in the petition in which he acts as the applicant before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (petition P-828/01), and in the present case, practically identical issues are discussed with regard to ‘the right to appeal.’ This reasonably […] leads us to conclude that Mr. Bovino might be seeking to influence, with his expert opinion, the criteria adopted in the present case, in order to promote his position in the proceedings of the petition in which he is the applicant.”; e) “[T]he involvement of Mr. Bovino as an expert witness in the present case […] would disregard criteria laid down on the ‘impartiality of judges’ that would apply mutatis mutandis in this case, […] with respect to the norms of impartiality that should govern their actions.” f) “Mr. Bovino’s dual role, as an applicant and eventual expert, in proceedings in which practically identical questions of pure law are debated, constitutes an objectively justifiable reason to sustain, in consideration of the norm of subjective impartiality, that there is clearly a personal stake invested in the outcome of the 4 Case of Fornerón and daughter v. Argentina. Order of the President of the Court of September 13, 2011, Considering clause fourteen. 3