83. The African Commission believes that this argument is an inference by the Respondent State that the Complainants have not met the conditions laid down in Article 56.7 of the African Charter. Article 56.7 provides: Communications … received by the African Commission shall be considered if they: (7) do not deal with cases which have been settled by these States involved in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, or the Charter of the Organisation of African Unity or the provisions of the present Charter. 84. Article 56.7 of the African Charter bars the African Commission from entertaining cases that have 6 been settled by another international settlement procedure. The issue that the African Commission needs to examine is whether the abovementioned complaint has been settled by some other international settlement procedure. 7 85. The African Commission has read the judgment of the ICJ in the Northern Cameroons case . In that case the Government of the Republic of Cameroon asked the Court to declare whether, “in the application of the Trusteeship Agreement for the Territory of the Cameroons under the British Administration, the United Kingdom failed, with regard to the Northern Cameroons, to respect certain 8 obligations flowing from that Agreement.” 86. It is the view of the African Commission that the matter before the ICJ was unrelated to the issues before the African Commission. The African Commission states that for a matter to fall within the scope of Article 56.7 of the African Charter it should have involved the same parties, the same issues, raised by the complaint before the African Commission, and must have been settled by an international or regional mechanism. The case before the ICJ was between the Republic of Cameroon and the United Kingdom, and involved the interpretation and application of the Trusteeship treaty. These facts clearly differ from the complaint before the Commission. As such the case falls outside the scope of Article 56.7 of the African Charter. 87. For the reasons outlined herein above, the African Commission declares this communication admissible. Preliminary issue raised by the Respondent State regarding the jurisdiction of the African Commission 88. Before dwelling on the substance of the allegations, the Commission wishes to dispose of some preliminary legal issues raised by the Respondent State. The Respondent State questions the Commission’s jurisdiction rationae temporis, and states the following: “…the complaint by the Complainants contains an impressive number of cases of so called massive violations of human rights which [are] alleged to have been carried out between 1961 and 2002. In this regard, the State of Cameroon refuses to acknowledge in limine litis the jurisdiction rationae temporis of the Commission with regard to acts before 18 December 1989, the date of entry into force of the Charter.” 89. The Respondent State also challenged the notion, or the existence of a territory known as “Southern Cameroon.” It states as follows: “….it should be pointed out that in spite of the fact that the complainants refused to reveal their 9 identities, they by no means ascertained to have been victims of violations imputed to the State of Cameroon. And even when they act on behalf of a so called territory called Southern Cameroon. The State of Cameroon will point out that no territory exists called as such in the Republic of Cameroon...” 90. The Respondent State, similarly, questions the existence of a “people” known as “Southern Cameroonians” and as such states that, “…[s]upposing that there are a people of Southern Cameroons, nevertheless, it would have to be proven that it is entitled to claim its self determination, under the specific form of ‘separate statehood’.” 91. The Commission proposes to deal, firstly, with the question of its jurisdiction then the question whether the people of“Southern Cameroon” exist as a “people” and whether the territory otherwise referred to as “Southern Cameroon” does exist, and if it does, can its “people” exercise their alleged “right to self-determination?”