72. As to exhaustion of domestic remedies, the State contends that the petitioners did not bring judicial or administrative actions in relation to claims about the conditions of detention. IV. ANALYSIS OF COMPETENCE AND ADMISSIBILITY A. The Commission’s competence ratione personae, ratione loci, ratione temporis and ratione materiae 73. The petitioners are entitled, in principle, to lodge petitions with the Commission under Article 44 of the American Convention.The petition names as alleged victims individual persons with respect to whom the State of Costa Rica has assumed the commitment of respecting and assuring the rights set forth in the American Convention.As for the State, the Commission notes that Costa Rica has been a State Party to the American Convention since April 8, 1970, the date on which it deposited its instrument of ratification; to the Protocol of San Salvador since November 16, 1999, and to the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture since June 2, 1996.The Commission therefore has competence ratione personae to examine the petition. 74. The Commission has competence ratione loci to examine the petition, inasmuch as it alleges violations of rights protected in the American Convention, the Protocol of San Salvador and the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, which are alleged to have taken place in the territory of Costa Rica, a State Party to those treaties.The Commission has competence ratione temporis, inasmuch as the obligation to respect and guarantee the rights protected in the American Convention, the Protocol of San Salvador, and the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture was in force for the State at the time that the acts alleged in the petition are said to have taken place. 75. The Commission has competence ratione materiae, because the petition denounces possible violations of human rights protected by the American Convention and the InterAmerican Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture. As to the Protocol of San Salvador, while the IACHR lacks competence ratione materiae under its system of individual petitions to rule in an individual case regarding violations of Articles 1, 2, 3, and 4 of that Protocol, the IACHR may, bearing in mind the provisions of Articles 26 and 29 of the American Convention, consider the provisions of that Protocol in its interpretation of other applicable provisions of the American Convention and of other treaties over which it does have competence ratione materiae72. As a result, the Inter-American Commission will interpret articles of the Protocol of San Salvador to the extent that they may be relevant to its application of the American Convention73. 76. As to the alleged violation of Articles XVII and XXV of the American Declaration, it notes that since the time the American Convention entered into force for Costa Rica, it is the latter, and not the Declaration, that became the source of applicable law 74, provided the petition refers to an alleged violation of rights that are substantially identical in both instruments.In this case, the rights under the Declaration that were allegedly violated by the State are protected under the Convention, and the acts that gave rise to the complaint took place after the American Convention came into force for Costa Rica.Therefore, the Commission will refer only to alleged violations of the Convention, and not of the Declaration. 72 See IACHR, Report No. 44/04, Laura Tena Colunga et al (Inadmissibility, Mexico, October 13, 2004. paras. 33-40; IACHR, Jorge Odir Miranda Cortez et al (Admissibility, El Salvador, Case 12.249, Report No. 29/01, para. 36. 73 Article 19.6 of the Protocol of San Salvador provides as follows: “Any instance in which the rights established in paragraph a) of Article 8 and in Article 13 are violated by action directly attributable to a State Party to this Protocol may give rise, through participation of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and, when applicable, of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, to application of the system of individual petitions governed by Article 44 through 51 and 61 through 69 of the American Convention on Human Rights.” 74 Speaking to the legal force of the American Declaration, the Court confirmed that, in principle, for States Party to the Convention, the specific source of their obligations with respect to the protection of human rights is the Convention itself. I/A Court H.R., Advisory Opinion OC-10/89 (Interpretation of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man) of July 14, 1989, para. 46.The Inter-American Commission has ruled in the same way; see, Report 38/99, Argentina, Annual Report of the IACHR 1998, para. 13, and Report No. 112/99, Colombia, Álvaro Lobo Pacheco et al (19 Tradesmen), September 27, 1999, para. 17. 17