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
Ecuador military interventions in the 1960s, while foreign companies developed oil resources in the Ecuadorian Amazon. In 1972, construction of the Andean pipeline was completed. The pipeline brought oil from the east side of the Andes to the coast, making Ecuador South America's second largest oil exporter. The pipeline in southern Ecuador did nothing to resolve tensions between Ecuador and Peru, however. The Rio Protocol failed to precisely resolve the border along a little river in the remote "Cordillera del Cóndor" region in southern Ecuador. This caused a long-simmering dispute between Ecuador and Peru, which ultimately led to fighting between the