It is the latest escalation in a long-simmering diplomatic feud: Mexico’s case against Ecuador for alleged violations of international law is scheduled to be heard at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The case centers on the controversial decision to storm the Mexican embassy in Quito.
On April 5, Ecuadorian police climbed the embassy fence and burst through the doors to arrest Jorge Glas, a former vice president twice convicted of corruption.
He had been seeking refuge in the Mexican embassy since December. However, his arrest came just hours after Mexico offered him political asylum and warned Ecuador against any interference in the process.
The police raid on the Mexican embassy sparked widespread outrage. Many experts see this as a violation of international law, which protects embassies from interference by local law enforcement.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was also outraged by the raid and condemned it as a violation of Mexican sovereignty.
The ICJ will weigh his country’s demand to expel Ecuador from the United Nations (UN). The International Court of Justice is one of six main United Nations bodies responsible for adjudicating international disputes.
But on Monday, Ecuador responded in kind, filing a complaint with the International Court of Justice against Mexico for granting asylum to the disgraced former vice president.
What is the nature of the dispute? What do both countries want to achieve with their ICJ complaints? And what can this tell us about the political divisions in Latin America? Al Jazeera breaks down the controversy.
PRESS RELEASE: #Ecuador initiates the procedure #Mexico Before the #ICJ in connection with the alleged violation by Mexico of a number of obligations owed to Ecuador under international law, arising from Mexico’s conduct towards Mr. Jorge David Glas Espinel https://t.co/E3ksTKxlZ6 pic.twitter.com/UOYPsKSpj4
– CIJ_ICJ (@CIJ_ICJ) April 29, 2024
What does Mexico’s complaint say?
The hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday begin at 10 a.m. local time (8 a.m. GMT) and last two hours. Lopez Obrador announced on April 11 that his country had filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice alleging that Ecuador “violated Mexico’s rights under customary and conventional international law and fundamental principles on which the international legal system is based.” has”.
This complaint asks the ICJ to suspend Ecuador’s membership in the United Nations – at least until the country “provides a public apology acknowledging its violations of the fundamental principles and norms of international law.”
Laws such as the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations stipulate that embassies and consulates are protected spaces. “The premises of the mission are inviolable,” the convention states, unless the head of the consulate or embassy consents to entry by local law enforcement.
Mexico filed its case with the International Court of Justice shortly after it cut diplomatic ties with Ecuador on April 6, a day after the raid.
She called the storming of the embassy a “violent break-in” and condemned the treatment of embassy staff, one of whom allegedly pointed a gun at herself.
What did Ecuador accuse Mexico of in return?
In an April 29 press release, the ICJ said that Ecuador had initiated proceedings against Mexico for allegedly acting “to protect Mr. Glas from Ecuador’s enforcement of its criminal law.”
Glas had been in the Mexican embassy since around December 17, 2023. He had already been convicted twice for bribery and misuse of public funds. In 2017 he was sentenced to six years in prison and in 2021 he received another eight year sentence.
Ecuador has described Glas’s stay at the Mexican embassy as a “blatant abuse of the premises of its diplomatic mission.” Mexico’s offer of political asylum is also described as illegal.
The lawsuit also accuses Mexico of interfering in Ecuador’s internal affairs.
In the days before the embassy raid, Mexican President Lopez Obrador used his daily press conference to comment on Ecuador’s 2023 presidential election, questioning whether center-right candidate Daniel Noboa would have won if the election had not taken place would have been affected by violence.
“Ecuador considered these statements unacceptable and an interference by Mexico in its internal affairs,” Monday’s court papers said.
Noboa is now president of Ecuador and has defended his country’s decision to search the embassy.
Who is Jorge Glas, the figure at the center of the controversy?
Glass was vice president in the government of former President Rafael Correa, an influential left-wing figure in Ecuadorian politics.
But his term in office, which began in 2013, ended under Correa’s successor Lenin Moreno. In 2017, less than three months into Moreno’s term, he stripped Glas of his vice presidential duties.
Glas later claimed on social media that he was being punished for expressing his opinion.
However, later that same year, Glas was sentenced to six years in prison for his involvement in the Odebrecht scandal, a corruption case that engulfed politicians across the region. Executives like Glas were accused of accepting bribes to award favorable contracts to Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction company.
A second conviction for bribery occurred in 2021.
What did the Ecuadorian courts say?
Glas’s attempt to seek refuge in the Mexican embassy has put Ecuador’s legal system in jeopardy.
On December 18, a day after Glas entered the embassy, an Ecuadorian prosecutor alleged that a drug trafficker paid bribes to senior judicial officials to ensure that the former vice president could be released on parole.
At that point, Ecuadorian President Noboa had not even been in office for a month. But his government warned Mexico not to grant Glas asylum.
Shortly thereafter, on December 28, an Ecuadorian judge ruled that Glas had failed to comply with the terms of his probation and ordered his arrest.
Noboa said in a statement before the embassy raid in April that his government would not allow “criminals to remain free.”
A three-member Ecuadorian tribunal would still declare the raid illegal on April 13.
Nevertheless, Glas’s detention was confirmed: he has been imprisoned in the city of Guayaquil since the embassy raid.
Why did Mexico grant Glas asylum?
The Mexican government announced in a press release on April 5 that it had decided to grant Glas political asylum.
It called on Ecuador to offer “the appropriate safe passage in accordance with the 1954 Diplomatic Asylum Convention, an international treaty to which Mexico and Ecuador are parties.”
Asylum is a legal category granted to people fleeing persecution. While Mexico has long offered sanctuary to political figures, experts say Lopez Obrador has used asylum as a tool to show support for embattled political allies across the region, particularly on the left.
Last year, for example, Lopez Obrador offered asylum to former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, who was indicted after trying to dissolve the country’s Congress, a move widely viewed as illegal.
In response, Peru recalled its ambassador to Mexico and its Congress declared López Obrador persona non grata.
Carlos Bravo Regidor, a Mexico City-based writer and political analyst, told Al Jazeera that Lopez Obrador had used Mexico’s tradition as a refuge for personal gain.
“I think Lopez Obrador invokes tradition to help his ideological or political friends in Latin America, but he really devalues that tradition in terms of the profile of the people to whom he grants asylum,” he said.
How did other countries react to the raid?
Ecuador’s actions were strongly condemned by governments and organizations in Latin America and the United States.
In a statement following the raid, the Organization of American States (OAS), a regional organization, expressed “its solidarity with those who were victims of the inappropriate measures that affected the Mexican Embassy in Ecuador.” It also called on Mexico and Ecuador to “resolve their differences through measures consistent with international law.”
Countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela also condemned the raid. Nicaragua also ended its diplomatic relations with Ecuador in solidarity with Mexico.
The US State Department said in a statement that it “takes very seriously the obligation under international law of host countries to respect the inviolability of diplomatic missions.”