39 aa) on November 15, 2000, Peru agreed to comply with the recommendations formulated in Report No. 94/98 of the Inter-American Commission70; and bb) the Inter-American Commission submitted elements to justify the expenses and costs of processing this case and the Court retained the right to evaluate them71. IX PRIOR CONSIDERATIONS ON MERITS 77. Having defined the proven facts that it considers relevant, the Court must examine the Inter-American Commission’s arguments, in order to decide whether or not the proven facts engage the State’s international responsibility, owing to the alleged violation of the American Convention, and determine the legal consequences of the alleged violations, if it is determined that the case has the pertinent merits. However, the Court believes that it should first examine the arguments submitted by the Commission concerning the State’s failure to appear in the instant case. * * * 78. As we have said previously (supra para. 44), the State did not submit any defense nor did it attend the hearings to which it was summonsed72. In this respect the Commission stated that: a) the Inter-American Court declared that Peru’s purported “withdrawal” of the contentious jurisdiction, by which it tried to prevent this Court from hearing all the cases in which the State had not answered the application, was inadmissible; despite this decision, Peru did not answer the Commission’s arguments and it did not attend the hearing of the instant case. 70 Cf. “Supreme Resolution” No. 254-2000-JUS, adopted on November 15, 2000, published in the official gazette El Peruano, on November 16 that year headed: The recommendations formulated in Report 94-98 issued by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights are accepted. 71 Cf. File: “SEPTEMBER 1997-DECEMBER 2000 / Expenses incurred owing to the political persecution and harassment of Mr. Baruch Ivcher”, containing 28 attachments; file: “JANUARY 1999DECEMBER 2000 / Extraordinary expenses incurred directly by Productos Paraíso del Peru S.A.C. owing to the political persecution and harassment of Mr. Baruch Ivcher”, containing 40 attachments; file: “SEPTEMBER 1997-DECEMBER 1998 / Extraordinary expenses incurred directly by Productos Paraíso del Peru S.A.C. owing to the political persecution and harassment of Mr. Baruch Ivcher”, containing 16 attachments. 72 In the brief of February 1, 2001 (supra para. 49) the State indicated that the Congress of the Republic recently adopted Legislative Order No. 27,401, establishing that the Executive was carrying out all the necessary actions to annul the results deriving from the “purported withdrawal” of the contentious jurisdiction of the Court by the previous Government. It also indicated that it considered that it was particularly important to promote a policy of rapprochement and collaboration with the inter-American human rights system and, insofar as this case was concerned, to initiate discussions leading to a friendly settlement, in the framework of the commitment assumed by the present Government, expressed in “Supreme Order” No. 254-2000-JUS, which allowed Mr. Ivcher to recover the ownership and administration of the Company.