After a little more than two months since on November 22, 2023, the Constitutional Court gave a positive opinion for the trade agreement between Ecuador and Costa Rica and requested that it be sent to the executive branch to send it to the National Assembly for ratification, the Agreement arrived last Wednesday at the Commission for international relations and human mobility of the legislative body, which requested familiarization with the text of the treaty.

The trade agreement with Costa Rica already has a positive opinion from the Constitutional Court

The Commission indicated that it will discuss the agreement and prepare a report for discussion at the next sessions, a treatment similar to the agreement signed between Ecuador and China that is still being evaluated by the Plenary after receiving a positive report from the Commission on January 3.

Before reaching the Commission, the agreement had to be reviewed a second time by the CC, which confirmed that the agreement signed by Ecuador with Costa Rica had already corrected the points noted by this body in the first review in July. 2023, when the Court declared unconstitutional the possibility of submitting disputes arising from the agreement to arbitration in order to enforce the prohibition established in Article 422 of the Constitution.

The organization noted that “the Ecuadorian state cedes sovereign jurisdiction to international arbitration bodies, since these articles consider the possibility of resolving contractual disputes between investors, that is, private individuals and legal entities, and states, through the body.” international arbitration, such as ICSID.

The Constitutional Court of Ecuador calls for renegotiation of some articles of the trade agreement with Costa Rica

Negotiations on the Trade Association Agreement between Ecuador and Costa Rica began in June 2022, during the IX. summit America; and ended on 19.12. The contract was signed last March 1 in San José, Costa Rica.