The secrecy surrounding a friendly settlement in a case that Ecuador brought against Colombia in the International Court of Justice for damage caused by anti-drug spraying along the border has further angered those affected by the fumigation.
The Ecuadorean government’s decision to allow oil drilling in the Yasuní National Park, one of the most biodiverse areas of the planet, has caused alarm among environmentalists and indigenous people, who are calling for a referendum on the issue.
Ecuador's new media law introduces guarantees to democratise communications. But it has come under fire from critics who say it could set limits on investigative journalism. Many doubts will only be answered once its regulations are passed.
Reports of another massacre in an isolated indigenous community in Ecuador's Amazon region cast doubt on the state's compliance with precautionary measures imposed in favour of uncontacted peoples in 2006 by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The Constitution of Ecuador adopted in 2008 establishes a broad range of rights for indigenous peoples and nationalities, including the right to prior consultation, which gives them the opportunity to influence decisions that affect their lives.
Ecuador's attempt to introduce institutional changes in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has been frustrated for now. Quito is seeking allies to create parallel regional mechanisms, but the risks of losing at this game are high, according to experts and users of the regional justice system.
Ecuador hopes to move forward in the fight against violence against women by typifying femicide – gender-motivated killings – as a specific crime in the new penal code.
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa secured yesterday his third term in office by a landslide, after vowing to radically deepen his project of citizens' revolution by making the changes achieved thus far "irreversible", fully achieving the goals of eradicating poverty, transforming the model of production and consolidating the "rule of the people”.