Mexico’s showdown with Ecuador over embassy raid begins at the International Court of Justice

By Tara John, CNN

(CNN) — A showdown between Mexico and Ecuador begins on Tuesday at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the culmination of weeks of recrimination over an incident that saw Ecuadorian forces raid Mexico’s embassy in Quito in April, to arrest a former vice president who had been seeking asylum.

Mexico is suing Ecuador at the world court over the armed raid, saying it violated the Vienna Convention, a United Nations treaty on diplomatic relations. It is asking for Ecuador to be suspended from the UN.

Surveillance footage from the incident showed Ecuadorian police grappling with the Mexican mission’s top diplomat as they arrested Jorge Glas, Ecuador’s former vice president who has been convicted twice for corruption. The incident drew widespread international condemnation, but Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa remains unrepentant, telling CNN affiliate SBS news that he does not regret how Glas was arrested.

In Tuesday’s hearing, Mexico is seeking provisional measures from the ICJ to ensure that Ecuador “takes appropriate and immediate steps to provide full protection and security of diplomatic premises” and “refrains from any act or conduct likely to aggravate or widen the dispute.”

Provisional measures do not represent a final ruling but function as a kind of restraining order to stop a dispute from escalating while the full case progresses through the court, which could take years.

Meanwhile, Ecuador filed a lawsuit of its own at the ICJ against Mexico over its decision to grant asylum to Glas. Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday that Mexico had violated conventions, agreements, and international obligations since Glas became a guest at its embassy in Quito last December and was subsequently granted asylum.

Ecuador also accused Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of interfering in Ecuadorian politics, by making “false and injurious statements” that questioned the legitimacy of last year’s elections, according to its ICJ filing.

The diplomatic spat has seen a host of Latin American leaders across the political spectrum rally around Mexico, and several nations sever ties with Ecuador. It also, once again, puts Ecuador at the center of an international diplomatic crisis years after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was ousted from his diplomatic refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and arrested by British authorities.

When announcing the case, Mexico provided Ecuador an off-ramp, saying it would seek Ecuador’s removal from the UN unless it received a public apology for the raid and reparations, Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena told a press conference earlier in April. Ecuador has refused to apologize and Noboa told SBS News that his administration is on the “right side of history.”

The Ecuadorian president – the youngest ever elected in the country – has the unenviable position of tackling a years-long security crisis, in which drug cartels have meted out violence with impunity as they battle for prominence. Noboa has put Ecuador in successive states of emergency, and his efforts to clean house appear to have public backing: He won nine out of 11 proposals last week in a referendum for fresh security measures aimed at boosting his war on crime.

It may be part of a regional wave of support for tough and even authoritarian crackdowns on crime in Latin America, where popular support has also buoyed the re-election of El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, who has put roughly 2% of the country behind bars.

At the center of the Ecuador-Mexico stand-off is Glas, who had sought protection from embezzlement charges by requesting asylum in Mexico, saying that the accusations were politically motivated. Glas served under leftist ex-President Rafael Correa between 2013 and 2017.

While Correa is currently living in exile dodging a prison sentence for bribery – which he denies – his party remains the largest bloc in the National Assembly, and perhaps reflects an old guard in the country that Noboa is keen to do away with.

CNN’s Abel Alvarado contributed to this report.

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