The government of Carlos Alvarado has not formalized its support to the lawsuit against the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, before the International Criminal Court (ICC), as he had announced since October 16th.
After 29 days of having announced its support for this lawsuit filed initially by Argentina, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru and France, the government has not announced to the ICC its support for this international legal process against Maduro for crimes against humanity in Venezuela.
Neither the Presidency of the Republic, nor the Foreign Ministry, nor the Costa Rican embassy in The Hague, have sent the official notification to the president of the ICC.
On Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry said that on November 9th it sent a verbal note accompanied by a translation of the official communiqué, which from its perspective expresses Costa Rica’s support for the initiative to investigate the crimes against humanity in Venezuela.
[What they sent] cannot be considered a formal document since it is even an unofficial translation of the communiqué. The note is verbal, it has no signature, only the heading used for communications of routine procedure, not to deal with matters of high diplomatic importance and international law. It reflects improvisation and ignorance of the norms and diplomatic practice,”
said Ambassador Javier Sancho Bonilla.
Initially, Carlos Alvarado announced that he would not join this lawsuit alleging that the Human Rights Council of the United Nations was the appropriate forum to focus the attention of the international community on this case.
This decision was censored and strongly questioned by the opposition, by experts in international relations and even by former presidents of the Republic. The lack of support for this lawsuit was described “as a historical mistake”.
The lawsuit is accompanied by reports prepared by international experts documenting extrajudicial processes, torture and arbitrary arrests in the context of the protests against Maduro in Venezuela. One of those reports is the one presented by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN).
Another reports was written by a group of experts from the Organization of American States (OAS) who said there was a reasonable basis to determine that 11 people, including Maduro and members of the Armed Forces of Venezuela, are responsible for crimes against humanity in that country.