Corruption in Ecuador accused Ecuador of violating the due process of 27 Supreme Court justices dismissed by Congress in 2004. In 2015, U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) stated that “judicial independence is seriously compromised” in Ecuador. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled in 2014 that an $18 billion pollution judgment against Chevron by an Ecuadoran court in 2011 had been the product of corruption. Attorney Steven Donziger and his legal team, according to Kaplan, had “used bribery, fraud and extortion” to win the case for his clients, a group of Ecuadoran villagers. Evidence showed that the ruling issued by Ecuadoran judge Nicolas Zambrano
Health in Ecuador Health in Ecuador Ecuador contains three distinct climatic regions: Tropical, Highland or Sierra and Amazon rain forest. The health conditions of this country vary according to these regions. In the sierras, in cities such as Quito or Cuenca where most Ecuadorians live, health conditions most commonly associated with the tropics do not exist. For example, the types of mosquitoes which carry malaria and dengue fever cannot live at altitudes above 2300 meters (according to the US Centers for Disease Control) as is the case in virtually all of the sierras. While there does not seem to be general agreement in