Ecuador

For thirty-seven years, I served as a Canadian diplomat at six embassies.

I always felt safe, secure in the knowledge that I and the embassies in which I served were protected by diplomatic immunity and were inviolable by any forces of the host state. Indeed, these privileges were codified in the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations of 1961 and the Convention on Consular relations in 1963.

Article 22 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations states that

“1. The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.

2. The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity.

3. The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment, or execution”.

Diplomatic immunity is vital if diplomats are to perform their duties with no fear of attack or arrest by police or security authorities of the receiving state and can only be removed through a declaration of “persona non grata” by the receiving state.

Diplomatic immunity has only been violated in a handful of circumstances – the most egregious being the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran in 1979.

On April 5^th, Ecuadorean police and military officers forcibly entered the Mexican Embassy in Quito to remove and rearrest former Ecuadorean Vice- President Jorge Glas, who had been granted political asylum days earlier by the Mexican government after living in the Embassy since December.

President Noboa has vowed to kickstart a new era for Ecuador, a clean break from his predecessors who allowed crime to run the street.

That may be one reason why he has pushed so hard to arrest Glas.

The ex-vice president had sought protection from a conviction on embezzlement charges by requesting asylum in Mexico, saying that the accusations were politically motivated. But Glas, already twice convicted for corruption and a close ally to his former boss, Rafael Correa, had become emblematic of the past that Noboa rejects – and a test of his determination to clean house.

According to CNN, Ecuador’s deputy minister of foreign affairs Alejandro Dávalos defended his country’s actions, arguing it was Mexico that, in granting asylum to Glas, had violated the Vienna Convention.

Mexico’s actions were unlawful because Glas had been “accused” and “found guilty” of crimes, he told the meeting, and the raid was necessary given “that a common delinquent simply had sought to flee.”

Santiago Orbe, an Ecuadorian international analyst, has noted that President Noboa is part of a new generation of politicians who act first and listen later. Ecuador will probably pay a price in terms of its international stance, but in the short term, such a brazen action will help Noboa, whose platform is all about security and law on crime.

Some observers have compared Noboa’s actions to those of another young politician who is very popular across the region because of his tough-on-crime approach at the cost of some rule-breaking: El Salvador’s President Nayeb Bukele.

In view of the significant levels of violence in Latin America, much of it due to both corruption and the overwhelming power of drug cartels, many voters are now looking at Bukele’s prescription as a viable choice. Indeed, El Salvador has gone from being one of the hemisphere’s most violent countries to one of the safest in a few short years.

The international community was quick to censure Ecuador for its actions, and Mexico has said it will sue Ecuador in the Internarional Court of Justice and press for Ecuador to be expelled from the United Nations.

We must remember that WikiLeaks head Julian Assange took refuge at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for five years. Despite pressure to arrest him, British authorities fully respected Ecuador’s sovereignty and respected Ecuador’s decision to house and protect Assange in its diplomatic complex.

It remains to be seen what type of international pressure will be brought to bear on the Ecuadorean government and whether President Noboa’s decision to enter the Mexican Embassy will pay domestic political dividends.

However, as a former diplomat, I fear that this could set a precedent that will make diplomacy harder to conduct and the security of Embassies and diplomats more difficult to ensure.