16 State has interpreted its declaration in a manner that prohibits the Court from considering the specific aspects of the “mandatory death penalty”. 65) The Commission also contended that the impugned term could be severed from the State’s acceptance of the Court’s compulsory jurisdiction, so that the State is considered to have accepted it absent the condition, “only to the extent that said recognition is compatible with the relevant sections of the Constitution of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago”. 66) The Convention protects the human rights of individuals subject to the jurisdiction of the States parties, so the State’s “reservation” should be interpreted in a manner that strengthens rather than weakens this regime, and, as such, increases, not diminishes, the protection of human rights in the entire hemisphere. 67) Severing the impugned term from the State’s declaration of acceptance, instead of annulling the declaration in toto, serves to guarantee Mr. Hilaire's fundamental human rights and those of individuals in similar situations who would not otherwise have effective domestic remedies of protection. 68) Trinidad and Tobago was the only State party at its moment of accession to have attached conditions of this nature to its acceptance of the Court’s jurisdiction. In contrast, the majority of States have accepted the jurisdiction of the Court unconditionally. It is a principle of International Law and a “fundamental precept of the American Convention”, that States cannot invoke their internal law as a justification for not complying with a treaty. Nonetheless, this is what the State purports to do with its interpretation of the impugned term. 69) The Inter-American Commission argued that the Court could follow the reasoning of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter “the European Court”) in the case of Loizidou v. Turkey, which declared that ratione loci restrictions could be severed from the declaration of acceptance, in a manner that the State could be considered to have accepted the contentious jurisdiction of the Court absent the qualification “only to the extent to which that recognition is compatible with the relevant provisions of the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago”. Oral arguments of the State 70) The State sustained in the public hearing held before the Court that Trinidad and Tobago had the intention of accepting, in a limited way, the jurisdiction of the Court, and never accepted nor had the intention of accepting its complete jurisdiction. This was the case because, in Trinidad and Tobago, any law that is contrary to a provision of the Constitution is invalid. Any inconsistency between the Constitution and the Convention would require an amendment of the State’s Constitution, and only Parliament can alter the Constitution. The Executive, on behalf of Trinidad and Tobago, ratified the Convention, and for this reason included the “reservation” in its declaration of acceptance of the Court’s jurisdiction. 71) The State also indicated that the Court only had jurisdiction if the provision in the Convention under which a violation is alleged is not inconsistent with the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago, in other words, to the extent that it is not inconsistent with the meaning that the courts of the State have given to the relevant sections of the Constitution.