21 ostensibly weaker party. If by non-appearance the State is announcing eventual noncompliance with the decisions of the Tribunal, it should bear the juridical consequences of its attitude, - and the other States Parties should react to that, in the exercise of the collective guarantee underlying all human rights treaties. Nonappearance does not affect the condition of the State as a party to the case; whether it likes it or not, it remains the respondent State in the case, even in absentia. 74. Article 68(1) of the American Convention is clear in determining that "the States Parties to the Convention undertake to comply with the judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties". Non-appearing States remain parties to the cases at issue. Their duty of compliance corresponds to a basic principle of the law on the international responsibility of the State, strongly supported by international caselaw, whereby States ought to comply with their conventional obligations in good faith (pacta sunt servanda). 75. It is somewhat surprising to witness that, as time goes by and the old ideal of the realization of international justice gains ground (as with, for example, the recent establishment of the International Criminal Court, pursuant to an original proposal by Trinidad and Tobago at the United Nations), some States remain resistant to the operation of the most perfected means of settlement of disputes at international level, that is, judicial settlement 76 (as illustrated, ironically, by the posture of Trinidad and Tobago in the aforementioned cases in the inter-American human rights system). 76. The precedent - among others - set up by the United States, of "withdrawal" and non-appearance before the ICJ, after a Judgment adverse to it on preliminary objections (in 1984) in the Nicaragua versus United States case, would be a very bad example for Trinidad and Tobago to follow. On the occasion, the United States earned much criticism from distinct corners of the international community, including from some of its own most distinguished jurists (like the late Keith Highet 77), for its disservice to the international rule of law. In the words of K. Highet, the strategy of non-appearance "may also backfire", and "may suffer a setback, once its absurdity and overall uselessness are correctly perceived. (...) The negative forces undermining the progressive development of international law - nonproduction, non-cooperation and non-appearance - (...) will now be seen for what they are" 78. 77. In the same line of thinking, it was further pointed out, in other commentaries, that the United States' defiant behaviour of withdrawing from that case and no longer appearing in its proceedings before the ICJ "appears not only injurious to the efficacy of the Court's compulsory jurisdiction under Article 36(2), but detrimental to the development of international lawfulness as well. Such lawfulness cannot 76 . Ch. de Visscher, Aspects récents du droit procédural de la Cour Internationale de Justice, Paris, Pédone, 1966, pp. 204-205. 77 . Of whom I keep a good memory, in the meetings we had in Rio de Janeiro while he was a member of the Inter-American Juridical Committee (IAJC), particularly of a panel we both participated in, together with Daniel Bardonnet, in one of the annual Courses of International Law organized by the IAJC, precisely on peaceful settlement of international disputes; the transcripts of that memorable panel were unfortunately never published. 78 . K. Highet, "Evidence, the Court and the Nicaragua Case", 81 American Journal of International Law (1987) p. 56.