[ibejoeb]

>highly unlikely that Moreno...will obtain a guarantee that the U.K. not extradite Assange to the U.S.

I'm not remotely convinced that Moreno had any capability to obtain such an assurance. By what mechanism can a foreign agent nullify terms of a treaty between two unrelated states, even if the subject were an ecuadorian national?

[occamrazor]

It is a standard clause in most extradition treaties: if country A extradites person X to country B for a specific crime, country B is not allowed to to extradite person X to a third country, or even try them for a different crime (except crimes committed after extradition).

[gsnedders]

In the case of the treaties covering the European Arrest Warrants, you can be extradited to country C with consent of country A and country B. Of course, that means you can take things to the highest court in both countries before anything can happen.

The response in the Assange case has always been about Sweden either violating treaties or about the US performing an extraordinary extradition.

[ibejoeb]

But that's not what's happening here, is it?

It used to be that Assange feared extradition to Sweden, and then Sweden would send him to the US. You covered this.

Now, since Sweden has dropped the charge, his fear is that the UK will send him to the US. This is a different scenario.

In either case, though, how does Ecuador intervene?

[UncleEntity]

I recall years ago (I believe it was [0]) the US gave guarantees they wouldn't prosecute under threat of the death penalty and totally reneged. Stuff like this makes it harder in the future to get cooperation from other countries because they see US guarantees as basically worthless.

What's that saying... "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

[0] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/wa-supreme-court/1360678.html

[garmaine]

Not really an excuse because I agree with the intent of what you're saying, but the federated system of the US means that the state department or president or whatever DOESN'T have the authority to tell the state of Washington whether or not to pursue the death penalty. That would have been the Federal government promising the actions of a third party it has no control over... which is pretty bad but a little different from outright intentional fraud.