7/8/2020 Mexico 9768, 9780 and 9828 96. It is understood beyond a shadow of a doubt that, in the light of general international law and the terms of the Convention, that it is a multilateral treaty, and that the Inter-American Commission has jurisdiction to hear and examine complaints or claims on matters affecting rights protected by the Convention (Art. 44). Nevertheless, and since the Government of Mexico has questioned said jurisdiction, in its observations to the denunciation that arose from case 9828, it is important to state the following: i. The Vienna Convention (1969) on the Law of Treaties establishes, in connection with the application of the international law norm pacta sunt servanda, that “every treaty in effect binds the parties and must be observed by them in good faith.” ii. In the Commission’s opinion we can distinguish in this precept, that proposition that the fact that the treaty is binding does not mean that the same establishes a norm that can point out obligations and rights to the contracting parties. Therefore, the treaty has the quality of applying and at the same time creating law. It applies the law, because when a treaty is signed the general rule of international law pacta sunt servanda is applied, and it creates law because it establishes rights and duties which did not exist before the treaty, that begin to grow as a result of the treaty and its application by each one of the parties. iii. From the aforementioned it can easily be deduced that each State party to the American Convention on Human Rights contracted, when it ratified or acceded to the Convention, the obligations of recognizing the competence and jurisdiction of the means of protection that the Convention itself establishes to “promote the observance and defense of human rights,” and one of those means of protection is the IACHR. iv. The duty to refrain from doing or acting negatively with respect to the application of the treaty can also be deduced from the context of this obligation. That is, what the International Law Commission defined when it stated “that every party must abstain from executing acts aimed at frustrating the aim and objective of the treaty” (Report of the International Law Commission: OEA/SER.Q/II.11 (A), CJI-18 (A), pages 44-45) that, as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights states, when referring to the aim and objective of the American Convention, “it is not the reciprocal exchange of rights between a limited number of States, but the protection of the rights of all human beings in America, notwithstanding their nationality” (Advisory Opinion on the Effects of Reservations – OC-2/82, p. 43). v. Moreover, it is deduced that according to the Vienna Convention (Art. 29), that the American Convention is applicable in all the territory of the United States of Mexico because “a treaty is obligatory for each one of the parties with respect to the totality of its territory, except if a different intention is inferred from it or is obvious in another way.” (Vienna Convention, doc, CJI-18, cit. p. 14). So, the provisions of the Convention are applicable in all the States of the Mexican Union as “supreme law of the Union,” in the spirit of Article 133 of the Mexican Constitution, because Mexico ratified the American Convention without amendments or interpretations applicable in this matter. Therefore, what is stated by Article 28 of the federal clause is applicable. vi. The pertinent matter for the protection of human rights in the inter-American system is regulated, for the States parties, by the division of the governments themselves of the member states of the OAS, which approved and put in effect the American Convention on Human Rights, among them the Government of Mexico, through a formal source of international law such as the Convention. 97. Therefore, as a matter of law every right related to this subject is not presently reserved, in an exclusive fashion, to the jurisdiction of the member states of the OAS, at most those who have ratified the Convention, because this is the situation that creates the present state of hemispheric international relations. 98. From what has been discussed thus far, Mexico, when it ratified the American Convention on Human Rights, committed itself to respect and guarantee the exercise of the political rights described or defined in Article 23 of the aforementioned treaty which includes the right to vote in authentic elections, and adopt legislation that will lead to that objective, as stated in Article 2. It also committed itself to provide an effective remedy for those who believe cidh.org/annualrep/89.90eng/Mexico9768.htm 16/17