Ecuador passes treaty law to circumvent parliament

Ecuador’s National Assembly Plenary last month approved the Organic Law for Interinstitutional and International Treaties and Agreements with 123 votes. The law regulates procedures for concluding treaties, determining institutional powers and obligations, and distinguishes international treaties from inter-institutional agreements or conventions in the international field.

Ecuador Legislative President Guadalupe Llori said: “Until now, we didn’t have clear regulations that follow parameters set by international law or our Constitution. The National Assembly, with this law, regulates international treaties and facilitates Ecuador's relations with other countries and with the world.”

However, some have noted that the International Treaty Law in effect offers Ecuadorian sovereignty up for sale to the highest bidder.

National Assembly Member of Pachakutik for the Province of Cañar Dr. Joel Abad Verdugo responded to the law’s passage: "In the Constitution of the Republic, in articles 416 to 422, there are only two treaties between states mentioned: between countries and between Republics, there are no direct Inter-institutional and International treaties as they are now trying to impose, other than the simple ratification and signature of the President of the Republic or a minister or lower-ranking officials”.

Citizen Commission for the Truth member Attorney William Sánchez explained: "Indeed, this law was approved in secret, not in good faith, because the Organic Law of the Legislative Function requires that every law be communicated, discussed. About three or four days ago it was omitted from in the list of laws on the Assembly website, in the laws approved by the Plenary, where generally and by obligation it must be.”

He continues: "Another obligation they had was to inform the citizens so that they could present themselves at the Commission working on this, then in the plenary session of the Assembly, so that they can express themselves, for or against.

"Since the constitution of the Republic in 1830, there has never been an attempt, through a secondary law, to monopolize and control the signing of the treaties of international agreements of the Republic by the exclusive part of the President of the Republic or officials dependent on him. It is unheard of and unprecedented in national history.”

The EU similarly relinquished power to the WHO and a European agency under the health organization, giving these bodies broad political powers to govern world health policy. In a decision by the European Council on 21 October 2021, the resolution stated that the European Council "wants the WHO to play a strong and central role in the future of global health management and supports the goal of signing an international treaty on pandemics."

The law likewise resembles the Israeli “Extension of Powers Act” that transferred legislative powers to the government, granting near-absolute power to exercise parliamentary control. 

Dr. Abad continued: "In this law, article 3:2, it is determined, for example, that 'inter-institutional agreements or conventions in the international arena may be entered into by the authorities that make up the public sector.'  Who are they? Just any ministry!

"A public company such as Petroecuador or the electricity sector, or all those who represent or manage assets; all of them can enter into inter-institutional agreements directly, dispensing with the National Assembly. That’s something serious, because it not only compromises the current government but to all those in the future with political taint. They can act out of personal motives and grant exclusive contracts to entities that do not benefit or represent the state or the republic.”

This assertion coincides with the opinion of Attorney Sanchez: "It renders national sovereignty subservient to international organizations, particularly with respect to the WHO (World Health Organization), which is what interests them at this moment, but it opens the door so that any organization, minister, or individual whom the Constitution does not allow to sign, can now do it by "delegation" of the President. What the Constitution indicates is that the President is the only one who can approve, not his delegate. That is what would be allowed if this law they want to impose isn’t stopped.”

Apparently the intention is to set up a legal basis for acting behind the back of the Ecuadorian people, since with a mere signature, any government representative may act without the knowledge of the National Assembly. As the Pachakutik representative explains: "With nothing but a signature, the representative makes a treaty effective, without the knowledge of the National Assembly. How is it possible that the legislators themselves renounced their legislative powers enshrined in the constitution to cede them to the executive and its dependent bodies? It’s absurd that a secondary law can mutilate constitutional rights expressly guaranteed in the Magna Carta itself.”

For Attorney Sánchez, everything depends on the President of the Republic himself: "The fact that the Plenary Assembly approved it means it goes to the President of the Republic, who obviously is not going to veto it because everything originates from him."

Dr. Abad analyzes some of the articles of the Organic Law of International Interinstitutional Treaties and Agreements: "With article 8 of this approved law, it is determined that a representative of the state can sign a treaty without the need for full powers." He says that with this law, an international agreement could be signed to force inoculation, as well as impose measures on the country in the face of a future pandemic, following the mandate of any organization that is now above the State.

Dr. Abad says this legal methodology is tricky, and is the same gambit that was used in Nazi Germany, when the German Reichstag approved laws that granted Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his cabinet the right to authorize laws without involvement of the parliament, "which, as historians recognize, meant de facto the termination of German democracy - of its constitution - thus fascism and Nazism were consolidated.”

Attorney Sanchez says the way to prevent the same fascist methods from being used in Ecuador and throughout Latin America is to “petition the Constitutional Court with a lawsuit called an Action of Unconstitutionality.”

This issue is being analyzed in a meeting with organizations fighting human and constitutional rights violations in Ecuador, to strike this law from the National Legal System for being unconstitutional, because "it harms rights and above all it affects national sovereignty.”

"Sovereignty is something very delicate; these Assembly Members who di this can and should be tried for treason against the country, and if the President of the Republic ratifies it, obviously we know that it’s all coming from him, so he would also fall into this category of having committed treason against the country."