The top United Nations court is set to rule on an urgent request by Mexico to order Ecuador to protect Mexican diplomatic property in the aftermath of the storming of the embassy in Quito to arrest a former vice president. The April 5 raid, hours after Mexico granted asylum to former Vice President Jorge Glas, drew widespread condemnation in Latin America. It also ratcheted up tensions that had been brewing between the countries since Glas, a convicted criminal and fugitive, took refuge at the embassy in December. Alejandro Celorio Alcantara, legal adviser for Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, told International Court of Justice judges last month that Ecuador’s actions overstepped “lines in international law which should not be crossed.”
