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Follow-up and Implementation: Mandates |
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DEMOCRACY: Corruption |
MANDATES |
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MANDATES
Develop an evidence-based Action Plan that takes into account the sociocultural, economic, and structural challenges facing the Americas region and includes, among others, identifying measures for national and international coordination and cooperation, taking into account the global commitments assumed by the states with respect to health and resilience, with a view to:
f. Using public procurement to simultaneously promote affordability, sustainability, expertise, and development of existing health budgets in an effective, efficient, and inclusive manner; promoting ethical conduct to prevent corruption in both the public and the private sectors; and taking into account commitments adopted regionally and subregionally; (Action Plan on Health and Resilience in the Americas, IX Summit of the Americas, Los Angeles, 2022).
Strengthen regional cooperation in support of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, including through the following measures, among others:
a. Encourage regular multilateral meetings and foster inclusive discussions among countries in our Hemisphere about challenges to democracy that have arisen in the region over the past two decades since the adoption of the Inter-American Democratic Charter;
b. Develop, strengthen and/or consolidate, in accordance with national legislation, the role of the Office of Ombudsperson (Public Defender, Citizen’s Advocate or Human Rights Prosecutor or Commissioner) and/or other relevant national authorities with a view to strengthening democratic governance and respect for and promotion of human rights in the countries of the region;
c. Recognize the provisions adopted by States Parties to the Escazú Agreement and invite the countries of the region to join efforts to act in keeping with it, as appropriate. (Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, IX Summit of the Americas, Los Angeles, 2022).
Protect press freedom and the full exercise of civil rights, including freedom of association, freedom of peaceful assembly, and freedom of expression, and promote the free exchange of ideas, information, and thought as fundamental principles of representative and participatory democracies, in keeping with international human rights treaties, promoting the establishment, in all areas of government, of mechanisms that promote transparency and access to public information. (Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, IX Summit of the Americas, Los Angeles, 2022).
Continue meeting the commitments undertaken at the Eighth Summit of the Americas, in particular the Lima Commitment on Democratic Governance Against Corruption, while reaffirming our commitment to treaties such as the UN Convention against Corruption, the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and the InterAmerican Convention Against Corruption, and taking the following actions:
a. Promote gender equity and equality and the empowerment of women and girls, and anti-corruption measures, from the planning process through to implementation, follow-up, and assessment;
b. Establish measures, systems, and public awareness campaigns that generate incentives to improve the conditions for reporting of possible irregularities and acts of corruption, including the laundering of the proceeds generated by acts of corruption, as well as measures that provide effective protection from potential retaliation or intimidation, use of physical force or threats for reporting persons, victims, whistleblowers, witnesses, and justice and law enforcement officials, consistent with international obligations;
c. Promote the use of open data to increase transparency, integrity, accountability, and citizen participation to prevent and fight corruption, particularly through the implementation of the Inter-American Open Data Program developed and approved in the framework of the Organization of American States;
d. Implement key government policies, platforms, and tools for open, transparent, and accessible public procurement processes, in line with globally recognized practices, such as the OECD Recommendations on Public Procurement, and explicitly address anti-corruption in relevant public contracts, as appropriate;
e. Establish and implement measures that enable the identification of conflicts of interest, ensuring their application in all stages of the process in question;
f. Establish procedures and programs aimed at guiding, educating, and raising the awareness of public officials on challenging ethical situations, and public procedures in situations of potential conflict of interest;
g. Identify, develop, and maintain statistics, including disaggregated statistics on gender and other relevant variables to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of transparency and access to information policies and provide for public access to these statistics for independent evaluation;
h. Strengthen and guarantee spaces for citizen participation, such as citizen observatories or other social control and participation mechanisms, where appropriate, for the implementation of measures for prevention of and fight against corruption and impunity;
i. Foster, as appropriate, measures to strengthen mechanisms aimed at preventing, detecting, and punishing acts of corruption, fraud, or unethical conduct, including those that are transnational in scope;
j. Strengthen transparency and accountability mechanisms or processes regarding access to information related to the environment, in accordance with national legislation;
k. Strengthen, as appropriate and according to domestic legislation, the entities responsible for preventing and combating corruption, as well as the normative frameworks and mechanisms that relate to access to public information, facilitating access and implementing policies on open data;
l. Strengthen and promote the use of digital systems to ensure and improve transparency, dissemination, public accountability, and the fight against corruption;
m. Actively participate in the Mechanism for Follow-up and Implementation of the Lima Commitment, contributing relevant information on the progress made towards delivering on the commitments outlined therein, and using the Database of Best Practices and Regional Capacities in Preventing and Combating Corruption. (Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, IX Summit of the Americas, Los Angeles, 2022).
Continue implementing recommendations received through the Follow-Up Mechanism for the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (MESICIC); reporting annually to MESICIC on progress made addressing these recommendations; and fostering the participation of civil society, the private sector, and social actors in the prevention of and fight against corruption, including initiatives that encourage public consultations, education and awareness, promote citizen participation in decision-making processes, and enable civil society to engage in monitoring and oversight, as appropriate and according to domestic legislation. (Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, IX Summit of the Americas, Los Angeles, 2022).
Integrate commitments emanating from the Summit of the Americas and from other relevant forums relating to the promotion of transparency and combating corruption into Open Government Partnership National Action Plans, as applicable, including: actions to strengthen fiscal transparency and prevent financial crimes, and strengthen openness of public information and data in open formats from the design stage. (Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, IX Summit of the Americas, Los Angeles, 2022).
Carry out actions identified in the resolutions adopted by the IX Conference of States Parties (COSP) to the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), held in December 2021, to effectively follow up on the Sharm el-Sheikh Declaration on strengthening international cooperation in the prevention of and fight against corruption during times of emergencies and crisis response and recovery, including by developing, putting in place and, where appropriate, improving and strengthening anticorruption policies and strategies, consistent with domestic law, to provide for emergency preparedness and address corruption during times of emergencies and crisis response and recovery, as well as the resolution “Our common commitment to effectively addressing challenges and implementing measures to prevent and combat corruption: follow-up to the special session of the General Assembly against corruption”. (Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, IX Summit of the Americas, Los Angeles, 2022).
Adopt appropriate measures to address the political commitments in the UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/S-32-1, which approved the political declaration “Our common commitment to effectively addressing challenges and implementing measures to prevent and combat corruption and strengthen international cooperation,” as well as continue to advance the outcomes achieved in the preparatory process for this special period of this General Assembly, including, as appropriate and according to domestic legislation, to:
a. Develop and implement regulations and measures to collect and exchange information on the beneficial ownership of legal persons and legal arrangements to facilitate the investigation and prosecution of corruption, consistent with domestic law;
b. Criminalize the solicitation and acceptance of bribes and the bribery of national public officials, foreign public officials, and officials of public international organizations;
c. Establish, where necessary, a clear policy on gifts and substantial benefits, as well as an effective regulation on conflicts of interest;
d. Develop and implement measures consistent with the UN Convention against Corruption that establish criminal or, when applicable, civil administrative liability of legal persons that engage in acts of transnational bribery offenses;
e. Strengthen, as appropriate, and according to domestic legislation, the capacities of central authorities responsible for international legal cooperation and the processing of requests for asset recovery, and continually take advantage of and expand relevant knowledge of experts and officials, in order to improve electronic processing of requests for international legal cooperation aimed at tracing, freezing, restraining, seizing, confiscating, and returning of proceeds and instrumentalities of crime, with a view to more effectively responding to requests relating to asset recovery;
f. Analyze the applicability of exclusion or inadmissibility clauses to deny safe haven to persons who are administratively and/or criminally convicted for acts or crimes of corruption, consistent with each State’s domestic and international legal obligations;
g. Empower young people to propose ideas with a view to preventing and combating corruption based on outcomes of the Youth Forum in the framework of the preparatory process of the 2021 special period of sessions of United Nations General Assembly Against Corruption. (Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, IX Summit of the Americas, Los Angeles, 2022).
Support young people’s inclusion, as appropriate, in decision making, oversight, control, and supervision in all levels of public administration processes in order to improve good management practices with a view to preventing and combating corruption. (Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, IX Summit of the Americas, Los Angeles, 2022).
Strengthen the public procurement and acquisition policies at the national, regional, and international levels, to include:
b. Implementing, using open data, methodologies and technological resources to identify and mitigate risks of corruption;
c. Establishing regulatory frameworks, measures, and indicators that are effective for countering conflicts of interest, favoritism, and corruption;
e. Developing and implementing, as appropriate and in accordance with domestic legislation, mechanisms to prevent, investigate, or, where necessary, punish corruption, including bribery, trading in influence, child labor and forced labor in the procurement of goods and services of the public and private sectors in collaboration with the authorities responsible for law enforcement and other actors. (Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, IX Summit of the Americas, Los Angeles, 2022).
Ensure, as appropriate, that the framework for upholding public integrity is based on, among other criteria, the risks of corruption, and is applied to all public servants and employees, in keeping with domestic legislation, independent of their contractual situation, and take measures so that the results of risk management are used to make strategic decisions and to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of oversight activities. (Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, IX Summit of the Americas, Los Angeles, 2022).
Foster multi-stakeholder forums for dialogue among the public sector, the private sector, and civil society, including women’s and youth organizations and social actors, to strengthen democratic practices, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, anticorruption, and open government efforts, including:
a. Participatory processes to promote government accountability and public trust in government, such as the development of informative communiques, social public commitments or citizen charters, as appropriate, which set forth what inhabitants can expect from public services and how to access them; (Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, IX Summit of the Americas, Los Angeles, 2022).
Promote strategic partnerships among the different sectors of civil society and social actors, and national and local governments, to prevent and fight against corruption, including anti-bribery and anti-corruption policies and programs, and to implement international best practices of transparency and accountability. (Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, IX Summit of the Americas, Los Angeles, 2022).
Collect data on corruption through qualitative and quantitative tools, originating directly from users of public services, and report them with a view towards identifying and preventing different modalities and corruption practices. (Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, IX Summit of the Americas, Los Angeles, 2022).
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To strengthen regional and international mechanisms for combating corruption, recognizing the value and importance of national mechanisms and a multilateral approach based on reciprocal evaluations on equal terms. To request the OAS to continue supporting the countries in following up on the provisions of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption. (Democratic Governance, Initiatives VII Summit of the Americas, Panama City, 2015).
We will strengthen our fight against all forms of corruption, fraudulent practices and unethical behaviour by increasing transparency, integrity, accountability and efficiency in the public and private sectors. We reaffirm our commitment to the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, and declare our support for the ratification and effective enforcement of the United Nations Convention against Corruption. In the framework of applicable national and international law, we reiterate our commitment to deny safe haven to corrupt officials, those who corrupt them and their assets, and to cooperate in their extradition as well as in the recovery and return of the proceeds of corruption to their legitimate owners. (Declaration of Port of Spain, 2009).
We recognize that political pluralism and sound political parties are essential elements of democracy. We underscore the importance of rules to ensure the transparency of party finances, to prevent corruption and the risk of undue influence, and to encourage a high level of electoral participation. Therefore, we will promote the conditions that enable political parties to thrive, autonomous of government control. We will encourage political training and leadership development, including for women, youth, indigenous people, members of ethnic groups, and marginalized segments of the population. We acknowledge the important work of the Inter-American Forum on Political Parties in enabling political parties to share best practices and strengthen themselves, as well as promoting reforms of political party systems (Declaration of Nuevo León, 2004).
Recognizing that corruption gravely affects democratic political institutions and the private sector, weakens economic growth and jeopardizes the basic needs and interests of a country’s most underprivileged groups, and that the prevention and control of these problems are the responsibility of government as well as legislative and judicial institutions: (Plan of Action Québec, 2001).
Consider signing and ratifying, ratifying, or acceding to, as soon as possible and as the case may be, the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption, in accordance with their respective legal frameworks, and promote effective implementation of the Convention by means of, inter alia, the Inter-American Program for Cooperation in the Fight Against Corruption and associated technical cooperation programs and activities, including those of relevant multilateral organizations and MDBs, in the area of good governance and in the fight against corruption, as well as programs which each country designs and implements in accordance with national laws, by its own appropriate bodies that may require assistance; (Plan of Action Québec, 2001).
Support the establishment as soon as possible, taking into consideration the recommendation of the OAS, of a follow-up mechanism for the implementation of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption by States Parties to this instrument; (Plan of Action Québec, 2001).
Support strengthening the Inter-American Network of Institutions and Experts in the Fight Against Corruption in the context of the OAS, as well as initiatives aimed at strengthening cooperation among ethics officials and members of civil society; (Plan of Action Québec, 2001).
Strengthen, in cooperation with multilateral organizations and MDBs, where appropriate, the participation of civil society in the fight against corruption, by means of initiatives that promote the organization, training and linkage of citizens groups in the context of concrete projects which promote transparency and accountability in governance; (Plan of Action Québec, 2001).
The strengthening of democracy, justice and human rights is a vital hemispheric priority. In this Plan of Action, we endorse new initiatives designed to deepen our commitment to these important principles. Specifically, we will intensify our efforts to promote democratic reforms at the regional and local level, protect the rights of migrant workers and their families, improve the capabilities of our justice systems and labor ministries to respond to the needs of our peoples, and encourage a strong and active civil society. We further resolve to defend democracy against the serious threats of corruption, terrorism, and illegal narcotics, and to promote peace and security among our nations. Taken together, these measures consolidate our democratic gains, reaffirm our commitment to democratic institutions, and commit us to building a Hemisphere of shared values. (Plan of Action Santiago, 1998).
Resolutely support the "Inter-American Program to Combat Corruption" and implement the actions established therein, particularly the adoption of a strategy to achieve prompt ratification of the 1996 Inter-American Convention against Corruption, the drafting of codes of conduct for public officials, in accordance with respective legal frameworks, the study of the problem of laundering assets or proceeds derived from corruption, and the promotion of information campaigns on the ethical values that sustain the democratic system. (Plan of Action Santiago, 1998).
Sponsor in Chile a Symposium on Enhancing Probity in the Hemisphere to be held no later than August 1998, in order to consider, among other topics, the scope of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, and the implementation of the aforementioned program. They will also resolutely support the holding of workshops sponsored by the Organization of American States (OAS) to disseminate the provisions set forth in the Inter-American Convention against Corruption. (Plan of Action Santiago, 1998).
Foster within the OAS framework, and in accordance with the mandate set forth in the Inter-American Program to Combat Corruption, appropriate follow-up on the progress achieved under the Inter-American Convention against Corruption. (Plan of Action Santiago, 1998).
Encourage the approval of effective and specific measures to combat all forms of corruption, bribery, and related unlawful practices in commercial transactions, among others. (Plan of Action Santiago, 1998).
5.1 The problem of corruption is now an issue of serious interest not only in this Hemisphere, but in all regions of the world. Corruption in both the public and private sectors weakens democracy and undermines the legitimacy of governments and institutions. The modernization of the state, including deregulation, privatization and the simplification of government procedures, reduces the opportunities for corruption. All aspects of public administration in a democracy must be transparent and open to public scrutiny. (Plan of Action Miami, 1994).
5.3 Ensure proper oversight of government functions by strengthening internal mechanisms, including investigative and enforcement capacity with respect to acts of corruption , and facilitating public access to information necessary for meaningful outside review. (Plan of Action Miami, 1994).
5.4 Establish conflict of interest standards for public employees and effective measures against illicit enrichment, including stiff penalties for those who utilize their public position to benefit private interests. (Plan of Action Miami, 1994).
5.5 Call on the governments of the world to adopt and enforce measures against bribery in all financial or commercial transactions with the Hemisphere; toward this end, invite the OAS to establish liaison with the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions. (Plan of Action Miami, 1994).
5.6 Develop mechanisms of cooperation in the judicial and banking areas to make possible rapid and effective response in the international investigation of corruption cases. (Plan of Action Miami, 1994).
5.8 Develop within the OAS, with due regard to applicable treaties and national legislation, a hemispheric approach to acts of corruption in both the public and private sectors that would include extradition and prosecution of individuals so charged, through negotiation of a new hemispheric agreement or new arrangements within existing frameworks for international cooperation. (Plan of Action Miami, 1994).
