Ecuador countersues Mexico for “interfering in internal affairs”

Quito. On the eve of the public hearing in The Hague, for Mexico’s lawsuit against Ecuador, for the assault on its embassy in Quito, an agent from Ecuador presented yesterday before the same International Court of Justice (ICJ), a countersuit against Mexico, for alleged violations of this country of international obligations.

In a statement, the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry alleges that Mexico had violated international asylum treaties since December 17, 2023, when it hosted former Vice President Jorge Glas, in its diplomatic headquarters in Quito, as a political asylum seeker. And at the same time, yesterday the team of lawyers who “will defend the interests of the Ecuadorian State” in the Mexican lawsuit was announced. It will include Michael Woods, Sean Murphy, Alfredo Crossato and Omi Sender. The ambassador of Ecuador in the Netherlands, Andrés Terán Parral, will act as Agent of the Republic of his country before the ICJ.

“This counterclaim is nonsense. In the government there is no awareness, nor any reflection on the barbarism committed by attacking an embassy and kidnapping an asylum seeker. They are only trying to justify a brutal violation of international law, condemned by the entire world,” former Ecuadorian vice chancellor Fernando Yépez told La Jornada. Some political analysts expressed the same line of thought in yesterday’s news spaces in the local press of the Andean country.

The government of Daniel Noboa raises four breaches in which his counterpart Andrés Mnauel López Obrador would have incurred. These are:

1.- 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, as established by the Convention of Vienna.

2.- It has failed to comply with its obligations not to grant asylum to people who are being prosecuted or on trial for common crimes or have been convicted by competent ordinary courts, and to hand them over to local authorities.

3.- It 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 and international law.

4.- Has violated its obligation 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 2023 United Nations Convention against Corruption.

In addition, Noboa makes two requests to the ICJ in his lawsuit: That he resolve and declare that by making, through his Head of State (Manuel López Obrador), false and insulting statements that call into question the legitimacy of the 2023 elections , Mexico has violated the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other States. Therefore, let him judge and declare the legal consequences for the United Mexican States derived from his internationally illicit acts.

On the X social network account, the ICJ confirmed that it received the lawsuit filed by Ecuador against the State of Mexico.