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OAS Secretary General Calls on Multinationals and Developed Countries to Collaborate on the Global Fight against Corruption

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, today called for international cooperation in the fight against corruption, in particular cooperation from the public and private sectors, and he urged governments of the most developed countries to act jointly with the multinational business sector to confront corruption, in a coordinated way and adhering to the same principles.

“The private sector is part of the problem and must be part of the solution,” Secretary General Insulza said in a speech presented by his Secretary for Legal Affairs, Jean Michel Arrighi, during the opening ceremony of the Third Meeting of Conference of the States Parties to the Mechanism for Follow-up on the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (MESICIC).

The fight against corruption, Secretary General Insulza recalled, “is a strategy with shared responsibilities: by the States, the private sector, civil society and the international community.” That is why it is crucial to “continue to strengthen our collective action and reciprocal cooperation while confronting common problems,” and to continue to walk towards “a broad, modern and inclusive multilateralism” in which “not only do we commit our countries to common standards in matters of democracy, but also mutually agree to forge the mechanisms that support or put into practice the commitments made.”

Those are the objectives for which the Member States and the OAS must “continue to develop and consolidate” the MESICIC, he said. “All of our countries have problems. That is why we must all help ourselves to overcome them.”

Through the OAS Secretary for Legal Affairs, Secretary General Insulza recognized the achievements of the Member States in the fight against corruption, and recalled the leadership and technical support the OAS has provided them. As a result, “we have taken concrete and useful steps to strengthen cooperation against corruption, and that is how citizens are perceiving it.”

In his speech, the head of the OAS cited the Latinobarómetro 2010 report, which indicates that “the region perceives progress in the reduction of corruption.” Elaborating on this topic, he said that “we believe that, through the process of cooperation we have been developing in the framework of this mechanism, we have been contributing to the real and concrete progress that has been achieved in the last decade in this field in the region, and the data in this and previous Latinobarómetro reports confirm it.”

Nevertheless, the Secretary General warned that “we still face many challenges going forward and that is why we must continue to strengthen mutual cooperation in this field.” He explained that the reports to be presented during this meeting reveal that “in some cases, countries do not have laws or regulations on certain areas of corruption; in others, those that exist are not enough for the purposes of the Convention; and in yet others, their effectiveness cannot be gauged since their impact cannot be known.”

Afterwards, the Minister of State of the Office of the Comptroller General of Brazil, Jorge Hage Sobrinho, said during the opening ceremony that the follow-up on the Inter-American Convention against Corruption is key “to make a diagnosis and point the road so we may overcome the difficulties confronted by the countries.” He also underlined the words of Secretary General Insulza on the importance of international cooperation in the fight against corruption.

Furthermore, the Brazilian minister said that “no government” can elevate itself to the point of believing that it can confront corruption on its own, which is the reason, he added, why his country’s Government has always supported mechanisms like the MESICIC. “We believe in the effectiveness of the Inter-American Convention and the importance of its mechanism as precursors in the fight against corruption in our continent, strengthening cooperation among the states in preventing, detecting, punishing, and eradicating corruption, as well as stimulating the continued improvement of the regulations implemented by each country.”

Among the achievements in regional collaboration, Minister Hage Sobrinho mentioned some of great importance to the countries of the hemisphere. “We all made progress on strengthening our corruption control systems, we all made progress on the development of norms to regulate conflicts of interests and in developing norms of conduct to guarantee the adequate use of public money,” he said.

Through cooperation programs, the OAS has been supporting its Member States to improve their institutions and legal frameworks to prevent and fight corruption. For example, it offers a program to assist the States in developing plans of action to implement the recommendations made by the MESICIC and from which 18 States have already benefitted.

Furthermore, the OAS has developed other tools of cooperation to support the States, such as the online Inter-American Portal against Corruption; model laws in areas such as access to information, conflict of interests and protection of whistleblowers; legal guides in all areas analyzed by the MESICIC; and training programs.

The MESICIC, which began to operate in 2002, is an intergovernmental body with broad opportunities of participation for civil society, established within the framework of the OAS to provide support in the implementation of the measures of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption. It is organized by the Department for Legal Cooperation of the OAS Secretariat for Legal Affairs, and also serves as a forum for the exchange of information and reciprocal cooperation among the countries that are part of it, including best practices in the prevention of and fight against corruption.

The Third Meeting of Conference of the States Parties to the MESICIC is being held today and tomorrow, December 9 and 10, 2010, in the conference hall of Hotel Tryp Convention Brazil 21 in Brasilia. It will address subject areas such as the progress by States in the fight against corruption, the monitoring of the implementation of said Convention, and cooperation with other international follow-up organizations and mechanisms.

For more information on MESICIC visit here.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-478/10