International law on the floor
The worst news we can have as human beings and citizens of a globalised world is when the law of the strongest prevails and international law, treaties, agreements and conventions are trampled underfoot, and multilateral organisations are ignored.
A future that ignores the architecture of international law and multilateralism opens the door to the law of the old west: the neighbourhood bully will impose his rules and conditions. Dangerous!
The raid on the premises of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador by security forces in Quito to arrest former Ecuadorian vice-president Jorge Glass is a flagrant violation of international law and the Vienna Convention governing the inviolability of foreign diplomatic headquarters.
Signed in 1961 by representatives of 81 states, the Vienna Conference on Diplomatic Relations is a common framework for the exercise of diplomacy between countries; it lays the foundations for the functioning of the diplomatic mission and establishes the privileges and rights of the respective ambassadors in the countries of destination.
Each embassy is a piece of sovereignty abroad of its respective country. It is not only the consulate or the building that houses the embassy that is part of this immunity framework, but also the ambassador's home.
With good reason, the Mexican government has withdrawn all the staff of its diplomatic delegation in Ecuador and is carrying out the corresponding international instances and procedures to file a complaint to the highest authorities so that the government of President Daniel Noboa receives some kind of sanction. Furthermore, the Aztec country should cancel any trade or economic agreement with Quito.
What is certain is that this will not be a small crack in international relations in the region and will surely have consequences in multilateral meetings within the framework of the OAS, CELAC and other organisations. The stance taken by Latin American countries in this regard will be transcendental.
The response from the UN, the International Court of Justice and the OAS will be just as important; what cannot happen is that this outrage remains without consequences.
The risk of no harsh punishment against Ecuador is that in the current times this could become a spiral of events that are repeated in other countries for grievances; for retaliation; for friction; for terrorism or for simple provocation.
On the subject
We do not have the perfect architecture of international law and multilateralism, but it is perfectible. The world has changed voraciously with the Digital Age and cyber threats plus hybrid warfare represent a reality that was not contemplated in the theoretical-conceptual framework of decades ago.
Nevertheless, we have it and it is laudable. The most serious problem is that the erosion is pressing. Law is a gentleman's agreement, it is enough that both parties recognise it, respect it and practice it for it to exist.
The crux of the matter is when one does not respect it and the other seconds it. "Consumatum est". Then everyone takes the law into their own hands and does whatever they want.
Attacking an embassy should be a "casus belli". Curious, but so far no one has dared. Not even the United States, which on 4 November 1979 suffered the kidnapping of 66 American diplomats and citizens by a group of students who entered the American Consulate and Embassy in Tehran.
It was the longest crisis in living memory: it ended on 20 January 1981 and cost then President Jimmy Carter his re-election. And no, he did not declare war on Iran.
There are other equally dramatic events. On 27 September 1975, extreme left-wing militants set fire to the Spanish Embassy in Lisbon in protest against the five executions announced by the dictator Francisco Franco; and Spain also experienced another terrible event, this time in Guatemala.
It happened on 31 January 1980 when the Guatemalan police entered the Spanish Embassy, which was invaded by a group of peasants; 37 people were killed in the scuffle, one of whom was the father of Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú.
We heard about diplomatic incidents again because of Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks and wanted by the American justice system after leaking hundreds of classified documents on the Internet.
On 19 June 2012, Assange requested political asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to the United States; he spent almost seven years there until President Lenin Moreno said Assange was a diplomatic nuisance for his country: the Ecuadorian nationality he had been granted in 2017 was withdrawn and he was finally detained by the British authorities inside the Ecuadorian Embassy.
These incidents speak to the vital role that diplomatic missions play, and therefore their protection under international law must be safeguarded.