8 14. On August 11, 2011, on the instructions of the President of the Court, and pursuant to Article 5 of the Rules of Procedure of the Legal Assistance Fund, the State was informed of the expenses incurred in application of the Fund. The State presented its respective observations on August 18, 2011. III COMPETENCE 15. The Inter-American Court is competent to hear this case in the terms of Article 62(3) of the American Convention, because El Salvador ratified the Convention on June 23, 1978, it entered into force for the State on July 18, 1978, and the State accepted the Court’s compulsory jurisdiction on June 6, 1995. 16. Although the declaration of acceptance of the Inter-American Court’s jurisdiction includes a temporal restriction,11 in the instant case, the State of El Salvador, in keeping with its acknowledgment of international responsibility in its brief answering the application and with observations on the pleadings and motions brief, and reiterated in its brief clarifying the said acknowledgement as well as in its final oral and written arguments, “declared its acceptance of the jurisdiction of the Court […] in the specific case of Gregoria Herminia Contreras et al., which is the purpose of the application,” without any temporal limitation (supra para. 6 and infra Chapter IV). That is to say, in all the procedural stages before the Court, the State has clearly expressed its willingness to acknowledge all the facts that occurred, as well as the violations that are declared in this case and their juridical consequences, expressly granting the Court jurisdiction to rule on all aspects of this case. The Court assesses positively the declaration made by the State for this specific case (supra para. 6). Consequently, the Court will now decide on the merits and possible reparations in this case. IV ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY 17. Invoking statements it had made during a hearing held before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in another case, the State acknowledged that, “in the context of the armed conflict that took place in the country between 1980 and 1991, there was a systematic pattern of forced disappearances of children and adolescents in different areas, especially in those most affected by armed combat and military operations.” In addition, it acknowledged that “the disappearance of Gregoria Herminia, Serapio Cristian and Julia Inés 11 The instrument by which El Salvador accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court includes a temporal limitation with regard to the cases that could be submitted before the Court, as follows: I. The Government of El Salvador accepts the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights as an ipso jure obligation and without special convention, in keeping with the provisions of Article 62 of the American Convention on Human Rights or the “Pact of San Jose.” II Upon accepting this jurisdiction, the Government of El Salvador records that its acceptance is in force for an indefinite period under conditions of reciprocity and with the reservation that the cases in which jurisdiction is acknowledged refer solely and exclusively to subsequent facts or judicial acts, or facts or judicial acts that began to be executed after the date on which this Declaration of Acceptance was deposited, […]. […] Cf. Text of the declaration of acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court presented to the OAS General Secretariat on June 6, 1995.