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The International Court of Justice sees no reason for precautionary measures against Quito for assault on the Mexican embassy

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) did not consider that there is “urgency” or a “real and imminent risk” that requires the issuance of the precautionary measures requested by Mexico against Ecuador in response to the assault on its embassy in Quito, although it emphasized “the fundamental importance” of respecting the Vienna Convention.

The court refused to issue precautionary measures today because it considered that “the guarantees given” by Ecuador already “cover the concerns expressed by Mexico.”

The Court warned that “unilateral declarations can give rise to legal obligations, and the States concerned can assume the unilateral declarations and trust them, and have the right to demand that the obligation thus created be respected.”

During the hearings on the precautionary measures, at the beginning of the month, Quito made a move forth and announced that it has already given written “guarantees” to Mexico that it will fulfill its duty to respect and protect its personnel and diplomatic headquarters, as requested by the Mexican Government to the ICJ, thus avoiding being the subject of orders from the UN judges today.

Ecuador’s guarantees include “commitments to provide full protection and security to the facilities, properties and archives of Mexico’s diplomatic mission in Quito, as well as allowing the eviction of that mission and the private residences of Mexican diplomatic agents,” the president of the ICJ, Nawaf Salam, said today.

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Based on this, the highest UN court decided that “the circumstances as presented to the Court are not such as to require the exercise of its power” to indicate precautionary measures against the Ecuadorian Government after assaulting the Mexican Embassy in Quito and arresting Jorge Glas, former vice president of Rafael Correa (2007-2017), on April 5.

“Currently there is no urgency, in the sense that there is no real and imminent risk of irreparable damage to the rights claimed,” added Salam, who read the ruling.

However, he stressed “the fundamental importance of the consecrated principle” in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and reminded Ecuador that “its good faith in compliance” of the guarantees given to Mexico is presumed.

“These guarantees are especially important during the period necessary for Mexico to evict the facilities of its Embassy in Quito, as well as the private residences of its diplomatic agents. The Court considers that the guarantees given by the Agent of Ecuador on behalf of his Government, which were given publicly before the Court and formulated unconditionally, are binding and create legal obligations for the defendant,” he added.

Before concluding the session in which he announced the decision, Salam noted that “there is no more fundamental requirement for the conduct of relations between States than the inviolability of diplomatic missions and embassies” and recalled that, throughout history, “nations of all creeds and cultures have observed reciprocal obligations with that purpose, in particular the institution of diplomacy with its associated privileges and immunities.”

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Last April, Mexico accused Ecuador before the ICJ of violating its obligations under the Bogotá Pact, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the letter of the Organization of American States, and the Charter of the United Nations.

The precautionary measures are issued, if necessary, in a provisional phase, before entering to assess the merits of the case, so this decision is not a judgment on the admissibility of the case, or on the existence or not of the violations alleged by Mexico against Ecuador, issues that will be discussed later, even without a date.

The Government of Ecuador welcomed this Thursday the unanimous decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of The Hague to reject the precautionary measures requested by Mexico for the invasion of the Mexican embassy in Quito on April 5 by the Ecuadorian Police to arrest Jorge Glas, former vice president of Rafael Correa (2007-2017), who had been granted asylum hours earlier.

In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility of Ecuador said that this ruling of the international court “confirms the unnecessary nature of the request” made by the Government of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The precautionary measures requested by Mexico sought the UN judges to order Ecuador to respect and protect its staff and diplomatic headquarters, which the Ecuadorian Government had already guaranteed in writing during the hearings on the precautionary measures held at the beginning of the month.

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International

The AP agency sues the Trump Government after being banned for writing Gulf of Mexico

The American press agency Associated Press (AP) announced this Friday that it has sued three members of the Donald Trump Administration after being banned from the Oval Office and the presidential plane Air Force One for not complying with the directive of calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.

“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not to be retaliated for it by the Government. The Constitution does not allow the Government to control freedom of expression,” the media maintains.

In its style guide, AP decided to continue calling the Gulf of Mexico “by its original name”, still mentioning the new name chosen by Trump, since it is a body of water that shares a border with Mexico and Cuba.

The White House formally blocked AP’s access to the Oval Office and Air Force One on February 14. “We are very proud of this country and we want it to be the Gulf of America,” Trump said on Tuesday.

The agency’s lawsuit, of 18 pages and filed before a federal court in Washington DC, alleges that they have decided to take this step to claim their right to editorial independence and prevent the Executive from coercing journalists to use only a language approved by it.

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Trump signed the executive order to change the name to Gulf of America on January 20, the first day of his return to power. He later named February 9 as ‘ Gulf of America Day’.

The AP complaint is specifically directed against the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, his number two, Taylor Budowich, and the White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt.

This Thursday, more than thirty US media asked the Government to restore AP’s participation in presidential events and not to take into account “the editorial point of view” when limiting access to the White House.

Among the signatories are the television networks Fox News and Newsmax, with a conservative tinge, in addition to other large newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Wall Street Journal or The Atlantic.

AP highlighted when reporting on his complaint that this Friday Trump referred to that agency as “radical left-wing lunatics”: It is “a third-rate company with a first name,” he said about it, the main one in the country and founded in 1846.

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Buenos Aires advances legislative elections to May 18 and suspends the primaries

The Legislature of the city of Buenos Aires approved this Friday the suspension of the open, simultaneous and mandatory primary elections (PASO), a measure that, according to the deputy head of government, Clara Muzzio, “allows to save 20 billion pesos (about 18,894 million dollars)”, and advanced the legislative elections for May 18.

“The City Legislature suspended the PASO, a measure that saves $20 billion for neighbors,” Muzzio announced on Friday.

For his part, the mayor of the City, Jorge Macri, maintained that the PASO “were an expensive mechanism that only solved the problems of politicians, not of the people.”

The May 18 elections, which were originally scheduled for July, will be held through the Single Electronic Ballot system.

In that instance, the inhabitants of the city of Buenos Aires will elect their local legislators and, in October, they will have to return to the polls to define, together with the rest of the country, the composition of the chambers of Deputies and Senators.

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“The fact that the elections are in May allows each Buenos Aires to decide on their own city, without being tied to national discussions,” said the mayor.

The project was approved in the Buenos Aires legislature with 55 votes in favor, 3 against and one abstention, after an agreement between the main political forces.

The suspension of the primaries in the City of Buenos Aires occurs one day after the Argentine Parliament approved the same measure at the national level.

The original project sent by the national government sought the elimination of the primary system but finally, given the lack of support for that objective, the government chose to promote an initiative that suspends them for this year.

The primary election system was first implemented in Argentina to define the candidates for the 2011 general elections, based on a political reform approved by Parliament at the end of 2009, with the aim of democratizing political representation, transparency and electoral equity.

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According to the PASO system, to be qualified to compete in the general elections, candidates or lists of candidates must achieve at least 1.5% of the total votes in the primaries.

All parties are obliged to participate in the primaries, although they do not necessarily have to present more than one list of candidates to decide which one will lead to the general elections, an option for which the majority of the forces have opted in the last elections.

That is one of the reasons why the system has been questioned, among which are also its costs and the cumbersomeness of the organization.

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International

Trump threatens to impose tariffs on governments that apply digital fees to US companies

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, signed an executive order on Friday that threatens to impose tariffs on foreign governments that apply digital fees to US companies, including Spain, the United Kingdom and France.

The order states that “foreign governments have exercised a growing extraterritorial authority over US companies, particularly in the technology sector,” and directly cites the taxes on digital services that “several business partners” apply since 2019.

According to the text, the Trump Administration will impose tariffs on those governments that use taxes or regulations that are “discriminatory, disproportionate or designed to transfer significant funds or intellectual property from US companies to that government or its chosen domestic entities.”

Trump delegates to the US Trade Representative the possibility of “renewing investigations” on the so-called technology fees of Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Austria and Turkey, imposed in the first term of the Republican, and if so, “take all appropriate actions”, which would include the imposition of tariffs.

“US companies will no longer sustain failed foreign economies through fines and extortionational taxes,” says the White House document, which provides for a “process” for them to “report” these “disproportionate” measures to the Commercial Representative.

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He also instructs him to investigate together with the Secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce whether in the European Union or the United Kingdom the use of products or services of US companies is “required or encouraged” to “undermine freedom of expression”, political activity or, “otherwise, moderate content”.

It also suggests to the Representative, among other things, to hold “a panel” with its partners of the T-MEC (Canada and Mexico) on the tax on digital services in Canada, and identify ways to achieve a “permanent moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions”.

The order does not mention any specific company, but mainly affects large technology companies such as Apple, Google (subsidiary of Alphabet), Meta and Amazon, which have precisely starred in a resounded approach to President Trump since he won the elections in November.

In his first term (2017-2021), Trump ordered to investigate the digital fees to his companies abroad and threatened to apply tariffs to the six countries indicated today; taxes were imposed in the government of his successor, the Democrat Joe Biden, and subsequently suspended.

Trump signed another executive order aimed at restricting access to US technology, especially in the field of artificial intelligence, what he calls “foreign adversaries”, including Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China.

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The executive order does not specify in detail what measures will be taken to restrict the access of these “foreign adversaries” to US technology.

Under the label of “foreign adversaries”, the order identifies China, Hong Kong, Macau, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and the “regime of Venezuelan politician Nicolás Maduro”, according to the text.

Trump justifies his decision with the argument that “economic security is national security” and maintains that the country must protect its sensitive infrastructures and technologies, from artificial intelligence to semiconductors and advances in biotechnology.

The executive order focuses especially on China, pointing out that companies linked to Beijing have used investments in the US to access key technologies and that the Chinese government is taking advantage of US technology to modernize its military apparatus.

Since his return to the White House on January 20, Trump has announced several restrictions on trade with the aim of balancing the trade balance and pressuring countries such as Mexico and Canada to make concessions on immigration and efforts against drug trafficking.

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It has imposed a 10% tariff on China, which is in addition to the rates already applied during its first term (2017-2021).

Trump’s new restrictions come after his predecessor, Joe Biden, took steps to limit exports of semiconductors and artificial intelligence technology to China, which led Beijing to respond with export controls on graphite, a key material for electric vehicle batteries.

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