MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

ICJ: Now Ecuador files case against Mexico

“We will never protect criminals,” Noboa said

Ecuador's conservative government of President Danie Noboa Monday filed a case against Mexico before the International Cout of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague (The Netherlands) for granting asylum to a fugitive at the Embassy in Quito. Former Ecuadorean Vice President Jorge Glas, who had been sentenced to 8 years in jail for corruption, had sheltered at the mission until local authorities stormed it in disregard of all international conventions on diplomatic immunity and arrested him.

Noboa's Government claimed that Mexico had disobeyed the agreement regulating diplomatic asylum when granting such a benefit to Glas. Nevertheless, Mexico filed a complaint before the ICJ requesting Ecuador's suspension from the United Nations (UN), Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena announced on April 11. The measure should remain in force “as long as a public apology is not issued recognizing the violations to the fundamental principles and norms of international law,” Bárcena also explained.

Ecuador's Foreign Ministry also underlined Mexico's alleged interference in internal affairs when President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) linked the murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio with Noboa's victory. Hence, Quito wants the ICJ to declare that Mexico “has failed to comply with its obligations to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State, not to interfere in the internal affairs of the receiving State and not to use the premises of the mission in a manner incompatible with the functions of the diplomatic mission, pursuant to Article 41 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961.”

Mexico has also “failed to comply, among others, with its obligations not to grant asylum to persons who are being prosecuted or on trial for common crimes or have been sentenced by competent ordinary courts, and to hand them over to the competent local authorities,” in accordance with conventions signed in 1933 and 1954 which govern diplomatic and political asylum.

Ecuador's Government also underlined that AMLO's administration ”has violated the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other States, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS), and customary international law,“ in addition to failing ”to cooperate in anti-corruption matters in accordance with Article XIV of the 1996 Inter-American Convention against Corruption, and Articles 43, 46 and 48 of the 2003 United Nations Convention against Corruption.“

One of the sentences against Glas stems from the same Odebrecht bribery case in which then-President Rafael Correa was also convicted and disenfranchised.

The raid on the diplomatic mission is unprecedented in Western civilization. It has been condemned even by governments such as the ones in Argentina and Peru believed to be of a similar political allegiance as that of Noboa's. However, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has remained surprisingly mum on the issue.

Self-proclaimed center-left, but supported in parliament by the right, Noboa claimed his decision to storm the embassy fitted within his fight against impunity. ”To the brotherly people of Mexico I want to express that I will always be willing to resolve any differences, but that justice is not negotiated, and that we will never protect criminals,” Noboa said.

The ICJ will hear arguments from both countries starting Tuesday, which could mark a milestone in this diplomatic dispute. In the meantime, Glas is held in a maximum-security prison in Guayaquil.