OAS Anti-Corruption Mechanism Adopts Reports of Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay

The Committee of Experts of the Follow-up Mechanism for the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (MESICIC) of the OAS adopted reports on the implementation of this treaty in Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. 

The reports were agreed to at a meeting that ended on September 18, 2009, and were the first to be adopted during the Committee’s Third Round of Review.

The reports examine the legal and institutional framework of the states and make specific recommen-dations for their improve-ment in such important areas as the denial or elimination of favorable tax treatment for expenditures made in violation of anti-corruption laws, the prevention of the bribery of domestic and foreign government officials, transnational bribery, illicit enrichment, and extradition.

In this regard, the Committee formulated recommendations to the countries to encourage them, among other things, to strengthen their laws in order to help competent authorities detect funds paid for corruption when said funds are used to obtain favorable tax treatment.

With regard to the prevention of bribery of domestic and foreign government officials, the Committee recommended, among other things, that the states adopt appropriate measures to prevent professional secrecy provisions from preventing public accountants or other persons responsible for keeping accounting records in corporations or other types of associations, from being able to report the acts of corruption they detect in their work to the competent authorities.

Regarding transnational bribery and illicit enrichment, the Committee recommended that states that have not criminalized these offenses in their criminal systems adopt the necessary legal provisions to do so.

With respect to extradition, the Committee recommended that the states, among other things, take measures to make greater use of the Convention in that area.  Such measures could consist, inter alia, of training programs on possibilities for application of the Convention to extradition cases, designed specifically for judicial and administrative authorities with competence in this area.

Likewise, the Committee evaluated the progress made by these six countries in implementing recommendations made to them earlier in other areas, in the framework of the First and Second Rounds of Review.

The reports pertaining to the six countries are available on the Anti-Corruption Portal of the Americas.

The General Secretariat of the OAS, through its Department of Legal Cooperation, which serves as the Technical Secretariat to the MESICIC, provided the member states with legislative guidelines containing the essential elements that a legal framework should include to adequately regulate the hiring of civil servants; conflicts of interest; the preservation of public resources; systems for declarations by civil servants of their assets, income, and liabilities; civil society participation in government oversight; oversight bodies; and mutual assistance between states in the fight against corruption.

What is the MESICIC?

The Mechanism For Follow-up on the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, known as MESICIC for its Spanish acronym, is a tool to support the development of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption through cooperation between States Parties.

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