Seventh meeting of the Committee of Experts of the Follow Up Mechanism for the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption
The seventh meeting of the committee of Experts of the Follow-up Mechanism of the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (MESECIC) was held March 7-12, 2005 in the OAS headquarters in Washington, DC.
The experts, presided by the President of the Committee and Expert from Bolivia, Guadalupe Cajías, met to review and approve the projects of the preliminary reports of Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Honduras, El Salvador, Dominican Republic and the Bahamas. At the request of Grenada, and due to the disaster provoked by the flooding that occurred in the country, they conceded to submitting their report August 20, 2005 at the latest, in order to be presented to the other Member States in the ninth Committee reunion.
In the meeting, the States gave information on the advances given in the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption, in agreement with Article 20 of the Rules and considered the Working Program of the Committee for 2005. The President, Guadalupe Cajías, expert from Bolivia and the Vice-President, Michael Hylton, expert from Jamaica, were re-elected for the following term.
 

 
The meeting of Experts on Cooperation with Respect to the Denial of Safe Haven to Corrupt Officials and those who corrupt them, their Extradition, and the Denial of Entry and Recovery of the Proceeds of Corruption and their Return to their Legitimate Owner was held in the OAS headquarters in Washington, DC on March 28 and 29, 2005.
During the meeting government experts, the international organisms, and civil society from the Hemisphere, in the themes of extradition and the recuperation of assets, exchanged information on experiences, challenges, necessary instruments and initiatives for the fight against corrupt officials, their extradition and the recuperation of assets. To finalize their deliberations, the meeting’s official gave tending recommendations to the improvement of the themes included in the REXCOR/doc.2/05rev.1 document.

The sixth Meeting of Experts of the Follow-Up Mechanism for the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption took place on July 26-30, 2004 in the OAS headquarters in Washington, DC.  

The experts met to analyze and approve the draft reports – on the implementation of the dispositions of the Convention selected in the framework of the first round- in relation to the following Member States: Bolivia, Costa Rica, Peru and Venezuela. Also, the experts analyzed the topic of collective interest on the procedure for the consideration of exchange of information, experiences and best practices to prevent acts of corruption in the processes of public procurement. 

In the morning of July 26, representatives from civil society of Bolivia, Costa Rica, Peru and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela commented on the achievements and obstacles in the fight against corruption in the region in an informal meeting. 

Finally, the following presentations took place: “First Meeting of the Conference of States Parties within the MESICIC Framework”, “Conclusions and Recommendations on Concrete Measures to Strengthen MESICIC”, “Declaration of Quito on Social Development and Democracy, and the Impact of Corruption”, “Meeting of States Parties to the Inter-American Convention against Corruption and Declaration of Managua” and “Plan of Action of Managua on Additional Concrete Measures to Increase Transparency and Combat Corruption within the Framework of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption”.

The reports of Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Honduras, El Salvador, Dominican Republic and Bahamas will be discussed during the Seventh Experts Meeting that will take place on March 7-11, 2005 in Washington, DC. The Committee of Experts agreed that the deadline for the presentation of documents from civil society on the reports to be presented in this meeting is August 30, 2004, according to Article 33, section b) of the Rules.

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The Meeting of the States Parties to the Inter-American Convention against Corruption took place on July 8 - 9, 2004 in Managua, Nicaragua. This meeting was held in fulfillment of a mandate from the Special Summit of the Americas, held in Monterrey, Mexico on January 12 – 13, 2004, where the Heads of State and Government of the Hemisphere issued the Nuevo Leon Declaration, in which they entrusted the States Parties Members of the Convention to propose concrete measures to fortify the Follow-up Mechanism of this Convention (MESICIC) and to consider additional measures to increase transparency and fight corruption. The 31 State Parties to Convention were represented in this meeting.

The inaugural ceremony was presided by the President of Nicaragua, Ingeniero Enrique Bolaños and by the OAS Secretary General, Cesar Gaviria. The Foreign Affairs Minister of Nicaragua, Norman Caldera, was elected President of this meeting.

For more information on this convention, please click here

During the Meeting of States Parties to the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption, which took place on July 8-9, 2004 in Managua, Nicaragua, the Government of Nicaragua and the Summits of the Americas Secretariat of the Organization of American States organized an informal meeting with civil society representatives and delegates of the participating States.

The meeting was attended by representatives of 11 civil society organizations and by delegates from the United States, Canada, the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Nicaragua, and representatives from the Summits of the Americas Secretariat of the OAS.

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The Summits of the Americas Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Permanent Mission of Nicaragua to the OAS organized a Panel on Corruption, which took place on May 20, 2004 at the OAS headquarters in Washington, D.C., in preparation for the meeting of State Parties to the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, to be held in Managua, Nicaragua in July 8-9, 2004. 

The Panel was comprised of well-known experts on the fight against corruption, who not only shared with the audience their insightful knowledge on the subject, but also provoked an interesting debate stimulated by their original approaches to fighting corruption. 

The Panel included representatives from Transparency International, the Heritage Foundation, the Inter-american Development Bank and the World Bank.

Panel on Corruption: Foto Gallery

The Fourth Meeting of Experts on the Follow-Up Mechanism for the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption took place on July 14-18, 2003 at the OAS headquarters in Washington, DC. The experts met in order to analyze the evaluation process designed to measure progress in the fight against corruption in the hemisphere and the advances of the member countries in the implementation of the Convention. During this meeting, the Experts Committee revised and approved the implementation reports for Paraguay, Colombia, and Nicaragua. To see the reports of Paraguay, Colombia and Nicaragua, please click here.

The Experts Committee also agreed to hold an informal meeting, before the Fifth Meeting of the Committee of Experts, on Monday, February 2, 2004 with civil society organizations. The purpose of the informal meeting is to listen to verbal presentation by civil society organizations that had previously presented documents before August 18, 2003, in accordance with article 33b of the Rules of the Committee.

The reports of Uruguay, Panama, Ecuador and Chile will be discussed during the Fifth Experts Meeting that will take place on February 2-6, 2004 in Washington, DC. 

On May 8th 2003, the city of Brasilia hosted a national conference on incorporating the national conference is part of a hemispheric initiative of the Organization of American States (OAS), in compliance with the mandates of the Summit of the Americas, aimed at promoting the adjustment of national criminal legislation to the provisions of the Convention and facilitate its application and implementation.

Organized jointly by OAS and the Brazilian Ministry of Justice through its Secretariat of Legislative Affairs, the conference brought together members of the Federal Congress, the Judiciary and officials from the Attorney General's office, control agencies, the federal government and civil society organizations.

For more information on this conference, please click here

The Third Meeting of Experts on the Follow Up Mechanism to the Inter-American Convention against Corruption took place on February 10-13, 2003 at OAS Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Experts met to analyze the evaluation process designed to measure the progress in the fight against corruption in the hemisphere and the advances in the implementation of the Convention by member countries. To date, 28 out of the 34 member countries of the OAS have ratified the treaty, which commits them to adopt concrete actions against corruption.

In this meeting, the Committee of Experts agreed to adopt, at the country's discretion, Argentina's analysis report, which will serve as a guide to the rest of the country reports, in the framework of the first round of analysis. In the next Committee meeting that will take place on July 14- 18, 2003 the reports of Colombia, Paraguay, and Nicaragua will be considered. Furthermore, the project for annual activity report of the Committee, including the work plan for 2003 was presented in this meeting.

On September 19-20, 2002, the Government of Mexico and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) hosted a conference in Mexico City, “Implementing the OECD Convention Against Corruption: Working with the Private Sector”. The Conference is within the framework of the 1997 OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, which declared illegal the bribery of foreign officials in order to benefit from international business interests.

The purpose of the Conference was to establish penalties for businesses and individuals who offer bribes to foreign officials in order to benefit from foreign business interests. Furthermore, the Convention examined preventative measures such as the adoption of internal controls and sound corporate management, as well as the enhancement of dialogue and strengthening cooperation within the business community.

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On August 30, 2002 the national conference on corruption took place in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The central issue of the event was the "Adapting of the Penal Legislation of the Dominican Republic to the Inter-American Convention against corruption." The Inter-American Convention against corruption was adopted in Venezuela in 1996 and has been ratified by 27 of the 34 member countries.

The OAS, the Department of Prevention against Administrative Corruption (DEPRECO), the Institutionalization and Justice Foundation (FINJUS), and the Catholic University of the Dominican Republic sponsored the meeting.  The conference is part of the hemispheric initiative of the OAS, in fulfillment with the Summit of the Americas and General Assemble mandates.

In August of this year, Transparency International (TI) released the  Corruption Perception Index for the year 2002. The TI index for the year 2002 classifies 102 countries and is developed on the basis of polls and interviews that measure the levels of corruption, especially bribery in the public sector. According to this index, the region with the highest levels of perceived corruption is Latin America. 

The CPI is extracted from 15 interviews and research done by various institutions. The CPI is based on a scale from 1 to 10, from most to least corrupt. It is important to note that Chile obtained one of the lowest corruption levels in the region, with a score of 7.5, placing the country in the 17th place worldwide., Paraguay, on the other hand, is perceived as the most corrupt country in the region, with a score of 1.7, placing it in 98th place worldwide, sharing its place with Angola and Madagascar.

On July 22, 2002, the OAS organized an Anti-Corruption Conference in Barbados – the first in a series to be held throughout the Caribbean.  The purpose of these meetings is to promote the ratification and implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption by those countries who have not already done so.  Countries that participated in the conference included Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname. 

The Inter-American Convention against Corruption was adopted in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1996.  Since then, the OAS, through its Department of Legal Cooperation and Information, has worked with countries in the Americas towards its ratification and implementation.  The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) financed this July conference, with the cooperative support of Barbadian government’s Office of the Attorney General.

The Second Meeting of the Committee of Experts of the Follow-Up Mechanisms for the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption took place on May 20 - 24, at the OAS main building in Washington, DC. Experts from the 22 countries that have ratified the Convention and that are members of this Mechanism discussed various subjects that will serve as guidelines for the first round of analysis of the different countries.

First of all, the countries presented the country reports on the advances of each in the implementation of the Convention. The OAS General Secretariat also presented a report on the dissemination of documents, projects on methodology, a scheme of decisions to be decided on during the meeting and a work plan for 2002. On the other hand, The Department of Legal Cooperation and Information of the OAS established the Inter-American Anti-corruption Network, a network between experts and the General Secretariat of the OAS where the individuals and institutions that are committed to the fight against corruption can interact virtually.

Also, the methodology and the questionnaire for the implementation of the dispositions of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption that have been selected within the framework of the first round were approved. During this meeting Mr. Faustino Collado, Director of the Division of Prevention Of The Corruption Department of Dominican Republic, was elected as Vice-President of the Expert Committee of this Follow-Up Mechanism.

The methodology for the review of the implementation of the provisions of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption will be done within the framework of the first round of the Convention and will be based on the Document of Buenos Aires and on the Rules of the Committee. The methodology includes the subject of review within the framework of the first round (Article III, paragraphs 1,2,4, and 11; Article XIV and Article XVIII), the general and specific criterias to guide that review, the possibility of follow-up visits, considerations with respect to the scope of the review of the provisions selected, sources of information, the review process, and the recommendations and their follow-up.

Finally, the work program for 2002 was approved, where they decided that there would be six meetings during the year, in which four countries would be analyzed by session. The order or sequence for the analysis of the information of each country was defined first by eight countries that volunteered and then by the date of ratification of the Convention for the rest of the countries. Each country will be analyzed by two countries, and at least one of the countries must have the same judicial tradition as that of the country being analyzed. The selection of the subgroups of analysis was done randomly. The next meeting of the Committee will take place in January of next year in the OAS in Washington, DC.

On April 15-16, 2002, a conference on Mexico against Corruption took place in Mexico City.  At the conference, participants discussed the causes and effects of corruption and reiterated the commitment of the various national and international actors in this fight.  The Organization of American States took part in this meeting and presented the advances made in the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (CICC) and its implementation mechanism, highlighting them as direct products of the Summits of the Americas process.  As the conference progressed, the following issues were considered:

• The role of the media in the fight against corruption;

• Tools for making government contracting more transparent;

• Civic education as a tool for fighting corruption;

• Prevention of and fight against corruption at the local level: empowering civil society;

• Accountability in Mexico;

• Strengthening the system for administering justice;

• The role of academic institutions in the fight against corruption; and

• The role of multilateralism and the CICC.

The President of Mexico, Vicente Fox, spoke at the conference’s closing, noting that the commitments agreed to at the Summits have become the Presidents’ duty to carry out.  He also emphasized the need to build alliances between governments, parliaments, justice, press, civil society, international organizations, financial institutions, sub-regional banks and cooperation agencies in order to overcome corruption, calling it a social evil that affects democracy in the region.

To see the speech given by Jaime Aparicio, Director of the Office of Summit Follow Up, at this Conference, please click here (Spanish only).

The first meeting of the Committee of Experts of the Follow-Up Mechanism for the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption took place on January 15-18, 2002 at the OAS main building, in Washington DC. 

At the meeting, a Practical Analysis Seminar on the International Monitoring Mechanisms was carried out, in which the international monitoring mechanisms of the following groups were presented: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); Group of States against Corruption of the Council of Europe (GRECO); Financial Action Task Force (FATF); and the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD-OAS). The objective of this presentation was to inform on the structure and operation of each  international monitoring mechanism.  It also promoted a greater understanding of the experiences and knowledge obtained by those who operated the mechanisms.  In this way, the Committee of Experts on the Follow-Up Mechanism can use these experiences as a basis for their decision-making process.

The group then carried out the First Working Session of the Committee of Experts, in which the Rules of Procedure and Other Provisions were considered and approved.  At the same time, the expert representing Uruguay, Dr. Carlos Balsa D’Agosto, was elected the President of the Committee.  The Committee moved to elect the Vice President at the next experts meeting.

Finally, the group selected the provisions of the Inter-American Convention that the States Parties are to implement in the first round of meetings: Article III (sections 1,2,4,9,11), Article XIV y Article XVIII.  In order to analyze these provisions, the Secretariat will prepare a proposal for a questionnaire that the Committee will approve in the next meeting, which is planned for the end of April, 2002.  In this next meeting, the Committee shall select those States Parties that will be subject for review by the Committee in the first round and will approve the 2002 Work Plan.

On June 26-28, 2001, Peru celebrated its First National Anti-Corruption Conference. The meeting was organized by the Instituto de Prensa y Sociedad, the Asociación de Exportadores, Transparencia, and the Comisión Andina de Juristas, and was coordinated by Peru's Ministry of Justice. Among other issues, the Conference addressed the following topics: "Diagnostic of Corruption and a Strategy to Fight It," "Corruption in the Media," "United States and Corruption in Latin America," and "International Experiences in the Fight against Corruption." A report was also presented on the advances made in the Montesinos case.

On June 4, 2001, twenty-one countries officially adopted a follow-up mechanism for corruption, taking an important step in their fight against it in the hemisphere. At the last OAS General Assembly, which took place in San José, Costa Rica, the State Parties to the Inter-American Convention against Corruption signed a resolution that reinforces their commitment to this fight in the region. This mechanism will be impartial and objective in its use and evaluation. It will guarantee fair application and equal treatment to all States party to it, as well as establish an appropriate balance between the confidentiality and transparency of its activities. Along with these characteristics, the follow-up mechanism will not imply the adoption of sanctions.

For more information on follow-up to the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, please click here.

On May 2-4, 2001, the States Party to the Inter-American Convention against Corruption met in order to establish a follow-up mechanism for the implementation of the Convention. This mechanism will promote the implementation of the Convention and contribute to the achievement of the purposes established in Article II thereof;  follow up on the commitments made by the States Party to the Convention and analyze the manner in which they are being implemented; and facilitate technical cooperation activities, the exchange of information, experience, best practices and the harmonization of legislation of the States Party.  

Delegations from the following States Party participated: Argentina, the Bahamas, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, , the United States of America, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Representatives from the following non-States Parties participated: Brazil, Guatemala, and Haiti, and representatives from the IDB and the OECD were also present. 

The General Secretariat of the OAS provided the secretariat support for this first meeting of the Conference, and it is the result of the work undertaken within the Group on Probity and Public Ethics of the OAS, on the basis of OAS General Assembly Resolution 1723 (XXX-0/00).  

As a result of the debates that took place in Buenos Aires, the first meeting of the Conference of the States Parties reached a consensus that is reflected in the "Document of Buenos Aires on the Follow-up Mechanism for the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption," which was approved on occasion of the XXXI Regular Session of the OAS General Assembly, in San Jose, Costa Rica, between June 3 and 5, 2001.