8 41. On May 28, 1999, the Canadian organization Assembly of First Nations (AFN) submitted a brief in English, acting as amicus curiae. The Spanish version of that document was presented in February, 2000. 42. On May 31, 1999, the organization International Human Rights Law Group submitted a brief in English, acting as amicus curiae. 43. A public hearing was held on preliminary objections, at the seat of the Court, on May 31, 1999. 44. On February 1, 2000, the Court rendered its Judgment on preliminary objections, in which it dismissed the preliminary objection raised by Nicaragua. 45. On February 2, 2000, the Secretariat requested that the Commission send the definitive list of witnesses and expert witnesses offered by the Commission to render testimony at the public hearing on the merits of the case. The Commission submitted said information on the 18th of that same month and year. 46. On March 20, 2000, the President issued an Order convening the InterAmerican Commission and the State to a public hearing on the merits, to be held at the seat of the Court on June 13, 2000. That public hearing did not take place due to budgetary cutbacks which made the Court postpone its XLVIII Regular Session, at which that hearing was to take place. 47. On April 7, 2000, the State submitted a brief stating “the names of the persons who w[ould] explain the content and scope of the documentary evidence offered at the appropriate time”, for the following persons to be heard as witnesses and expert witnesses at the public hearing on the merits of the present case: Marco Antonio Centeno Caffarena, Director of the Office of Rural Titling; Uriel Vanegas, Director of the Secretariat of Territorial Demarcation of the Regional Council of the RAAN; Gonzalo Medina, advisor and an expert in Geodesics and Cartography at the Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies, and María Nella Rocha, Special Public Attorney for the Environment at the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic. The arguments submitted by the State in said brief indicate that testimony of the witnesses and expert witnesses offered would contribute to establishing: a) damages caused to property rights of indigenous communities that are neighbors of the Mayagna Awas Tingni Community, if title were given to the disproportionate area claimed by that Community [;] b) damages to land claims of the rest of the indigenous communities of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, if the disproportionate area claimed by the Awas Tingni Indigenous Community were allocated to it; c) the interest of the State in carrying out an equable and objective titling process on the lands of the Indigenous Communities, which will safeguard the rights of each one of the Communities; arguments presented in the brief on Preliminary Objections and in the Reply to the Application, and supported by documents submitted by means of the Annexes previously referred to. 48. On April 13, 2000, the Commission sent a brief in which it requested that the Court order the State to adopt “the necessary measures to ensure that its officials do not act in such a way that they tend to apply pressure on the Community to give up its claim, or that tends to interfere in the relationship between the Community and its attorneys, [, and…] that it cease to attempt to negotiate with members of the