V ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY BY THE STTATE AND ENDORSEMENT OF THE FRIENDLY SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT A. The friendly settlement agreement 14. On February 28, 2012, during the public hearing of the case, the parties submitted to the Court a friendly settlement agreement15 between the State of Honduras and the representatives of the presumed victims, and the Inter-American Commission endorsed this agreement during the public hearing. In the agreement, the State acknowledged its international responsibility with regard to the context, the facts, and the violations described in the Commission’s Report on Merits, and the corresponding measures of reparation were established. 15. During the hearing of the case, the State read the agreement and made a “public acknowledgment of international responsibility,” as follows:16 […] The State of Honduras acknowledges that life is a supreme, irreplaceable and irreparable right. It also acknowledges that the human being is the supreme purpose of society and that it corresponds [to the State] to protect his or her intrinsic rights. In short, […] it corresponds to the State to ensure that its citizens may enjoy justice. The State of Honduras is a signatory of the Charter of the Organization of American States, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the American Convention on Human Rights, instruments of the inter-American system for the protection of human rights, which recognize to the individual all the fundamental guarantees such as […] the right to life, to safety, and to personal integrity. Based on their violation, [the State] acknowledges […] its responsibility for the death of 107 persons who were detained in the San Pedro Sula Prison, Department of Cortés, Honduras, as a result of the fire that occurred owing to the conditions at this prison that resulted in the human rights violations. The State of Honduras […] acknowledges that no price can be placed on a human life and that the amount that it has undertaken to pay on this occasion will not compensate those that lost their life or bring them back. Nevertheless, it may help their next of kin to mitigate some of their needs, but not the anguish of losing their family members. Based on the foregoing, [the State] reiterates to the next of kin, friends, and general public, its apologies for the events that took place, and expresses its deepest condolences for the death of these individuals, represented before this Court on this occasion by the Pastoral Penitenciaria Sanpedrana CARITAS and the Equipo de Reflexión, Investigación y Comunicación (ERIC). The State of Honduras acknowledges and appreciates the Court’s intervention to assist the parties in dispute to reach an agreement […]. 16. In view of the State’s acknowledgement of rights in relation to the violations declared in the Merits Report, the State accepted its international responsibility for the violation of the rights embodied in Articles 4, 5, 7, 9, 8 and 25, in relation to Article 1(1) and 2, all of the American Convention. 15 Cf. Friendly settlement agreement. Case 12,680. Pacheco Teruel et al. v. Honduras (merits report, folios 574 to 582). 16 Acknowledgement of responsibility made on February 28, 2012, by Ethel Suyapa Deras Enamorado, Attorney General of the Republic, during the public hearing of the case (transcript of the hearing). Available at: http://vimeo.com/37633316. 8