US military forces will be able to conduct naval and air operations in Ecuador

The Constitutional Court has upheld an agreement signed by Ecuador and the United States for operations against illegal transnational maritime activities. which provides for operations between the militaries of the two countries to combat illegal international maritime activities including drug trafficking, migration, weapons of mass destruction and illegal fishing. The instrument was signed by the former president Guillermo Lasso and must be approved by the current Head of State, Daniel Noboa. The High Constitutional Court indicated that the agreement would not require legislative approval to enter into force.

Responding to the urgent need to combat organized crime at the international level, it is a fundamental goal for both nations to prevent, identify, combat, disrupt and deter illegal international maritime activities. Similarly, it establishes a regulatory framework for aircraft, authorities, agents and vessels of law enforcement agencies or organizations of both countries, which must be clearly identifiable and have relevant authorization from the respective state.

The Ecuadorian and American governments, as signed, must develop a program of joint maritime operations and each country’s military personnel “Agents on board partner nation vessels. These agents can prosecute and authorize suspicious vessels bound for their country. They will also be able to patrol their nation’s territorial sea and maintain “any search or seizure of property, any detention of persons and the necessary use of force”.

Article 4 of the Cooperation Agreement shows that The United States may prosecute illegal maritime activities in Ecuador’s territorial sea only when authorized to do so by the State of Ecuador. This authorization may be granted when a suspect vessel is en route to Ecuador, when a suspect vessel is within Ecuadorian waters, when illegal fishing activities are detected in Ecuador’s exclusive economic zone, or when the Navy does not have a unit that can exercise. control. Control of suspicious vessel with Ecuadorian flag.

Regarding air operations, the Department of Defense can authorize US Air Force operations in three cases: for transportation; to land and stop temporarily at Simon Bolivar Air Base and other airports; and to transmit orders from the Ecuadorian Air Force to suspected aircraft to land in Ecuador.

Ecuador will grant US military personnel the privileges and immunities normally enjoyed by authorized members of diplomatic missions in the country. According to the agreement: “The parties shall consider the appointment of liaison officers and investigators to embassy staff or military groups for the purpose of facilitating law enforcement investigations, prosecutions and information exchange in accordance with this agreement”.

“We have a lot of things that we’ve done with Ecuador recently. For example, a security assistance roadmap called ESAR with Ecuador. And there is only one other country in the region with which we have signed this roadmap. It suggests a five-year plan, It sets out a roadmap for the security cooperation we will undertake. “We’ve created a bilateral defense working group and that’s how we exchange between the Pentagon and Ecuador,” General Laura Richardson, commander of the United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), told Ecuadorian media. First fruits.

The agreements, the commander suggested, would allow for a greater US military presence in Ecuador for “cooperation on security, mobile training teams, exchange of subjects, exchange of small and medium-sized companies, etc.” Richardson explained First fruits That, for example, the Joint Interagency Task Force South for the Detection and Monitoring of Illicit Sea and Air Drug Trafficking, based in Key West (Florida), conducts missions in the Galapagos due to illegal activities detected around the archipelago.