petitioners during the admissibility phase.” The State also indicated that the representatives, “conscious of the fact that the alleged threats against members of the OEPSP were not part of the litigation in the case sub judice,” presented “completely unfounded arguments in bad faith in order to link the criminal proceedings underway” to the alleged “acts of violence and harassment against the OEPSP,” even though “none of the case files indicate” that those acts “had occurred due to their involvement as members of [that organization]” and that, in addition, “there are no claims related to threats against the alleged victims before any domestic court.” Furthermore, it stated that “it is not possible to argue that the alleged acts of harassment are supervening events.” 55. The representatives stated that “[c]ontrary to the State’s claim, the Commission's application indicates that the direct victims in this case were members of the OEPSP” and it “also states that the victims have received awards for their work in defense of the environment […].” Additionally, the representatives “did not ask the Court to decide the case based on the context in which the facts occurred” but rather, as the Court has done in other cases, “to take into account the context in assessing the facts.” Therefore, they held that “the State is mistaken in indicating that [the representatives seek to] include acts of violence and harassment against the members of the OEPSP in the litigation of this case,” as their intention when referring to the context of the case is not to introduce “facts different from those established by the Commission in its application, but merely to develop, explain, and clarify [the latter].” Furthermore, the representatives alleged that “the way in which the arrest was carried out (including the treatment received during the arrest) and the criminal proceeding against the victims,” as well as the aforementioned events and “the circumstances in which they occurred, arise from the Commission's application.” 56. According to the Court’s consistent case law, alleged victims, their families or representatives in contentious proceedings before this Court, may invoke the violation of rights different to those included in the Commission’s application, provided that these refer to facts already included in the application, 43 which constitutes the factual framework of the proceeding. 44 Furthermore, since a contentious case is, essentially, a litigation between a State and a petitioner or a presumed victim, 45 the latter may refer to facts that explain, contextualize, clarify or rebut those mentioned in the application, or else respond to the State’s claims, 46 based on the arguments and evidence they provide, without impairing the procedural balance or the adversarial principle, since the State is given procedural opportunities to respond to these allegations at all stages of the proceedings. Moreover, the Court may be informed of supervening facts at any stage of the 43 Cf. Case of the “Five Pensioners” v. Peru. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of February 28, 2003. Series C No. 98, para. 155; Case of Fernández Ortega et al. v. Mexico, supra note 39, para. 218; and Case of Ibsen Cárdenas and Ibsen Peña v. Bolivia, supra note 30, para. 228. 44 Cf. Case of the “Mapiripán Massacre” v. Colombia. Preliminary Objections. Judgment of March 7, 2005. Series C No. 122, para. 59; Case of Fernández Ortega et al. v. Mexico, supra note 39, para. 69; Case of Ibsen Cárdenas and Ibsen Peña v. Bolivia, supra note 30, para. 134. 45 In the case of Manuel Cepeda Vargas v. Colombia, the Court emphasized that the recent reform of the Court’s Rules of Procedure (and even of those of the Commission) reflects this concept. The Court recalled that in the introduction to the reforms indicates that: “[T]he principal reform introduced by the new Rules of Procedure relates to the role of the Commission in the proceedings before the Court. In this regard, the different actors of the system that took part in this consultation referred to the advisability of modifying some aspects of the Commission’s participation in the proceedings before the Court, granting greater prominence in the litigation to the representatives of the victims or presumed victims and the defendant State; thereby enhancing the role of the Commission as an organ of the inter-American system, and thus improving the procedural balance between the parties. Case of Manuel Cepeda Vargas v. Colombia, supra note 27, para. 49. 46 Cf. Case of the “Five Pensioners" v. Peru, supra note 43, para. 153; Case of Manuel Cepeda Vargas v. Colombia, supra note 27, para. 49; and Case of Xákmok Kásek Indigenous Community v. Paraguay. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of August 24, 2010. Series C N. 214, para. 237. 22