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A. Structure
1. The Department of Legal Cooperation and its staff are under the overall
direction, supervision, and control of the director of the Department, who
reports to the secretary for legal affairs, in accordance with the legal system
of the Organization and with the provisions of this Executive Order.
B. Functions
1. Provides advisory and technical secretariat services to the
Meetings of
Ministers of Justice or of Ministers or Attorneys General of the Americas (REMJAs)
and to the groups, committees, meetings, and other mechanisms established by
them, or connected with them, for coordination or for political and technical
dialogue; takes the necessary action to implement and fulfill their
recommendations and decisions.
2. Provides advisory and technical secretariat services to the
Conference of
State Parties and to the
Committee of Experts of the Follow-up Mechanism for
Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, in
accordance with the
Report of Buenos Aires, the
Rules of Procedure of the
Committee, and the other rules adopted for this Mechanism.
3. Advises the Consultative Committee of the Inter-American Convention against
the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition,
Explosives, and Other Related Materials (CIFTA) and its Secretariat pro tempore
on matters related to mutual legal assistance that are addressed by the CIFTA.
4. Prepares draft strategies, plans of action, or technical cooperation programs
to strengthen mutual juridical and judicial assistance among member states, in
the context of inter-American treaties and legal instruments in this area, to
fight forms of transnational organized crime; presents them, for consideration,
to REMJA or to the appropriate juridical cooperation mechanism; executes, or
coordinates with other General Secretariat dependencies the execution of,
measures for their implementation that correspond to the General Secretariat;
follows up on their implementation and reports thereon to REMJA or to the
appropriate juridical cooperation mechanism.
5. Provides advisory and technical secretariat services, in the juridical and
judicial cooperation areas for which it is responsible, to the organs, agencies,
and entities of the OAS, their committees, and their working groups.
6. Carries out technical cooperation projects to promote the ratification,
legislative implementation, and application of inter-American juridical and
judicial cooperation treaties, in fulfillment of the resolutions of the General
Assembly or of the appropriate juridical cooperation mechanisms.
7. Issues public information on the juridical cooperation mechanisms for which
it serves as technical secretariat and on its own areas of endeavor; provides
technical secretariat services as required for the proper functioning of the
Inter-American Network for Cooperation against Corruption, the
Hemispheric Network for Legal Cooperation in Criminal Matters, and all other networks formed for
information-sharing in the Hemisphere, in areas related to juridical and
judicial cooperation.
8. Coordinates the General Secretariat’s cooperative relations with the Justice
Studies Center of the Americas (JSCA) and with other international organizations
and other institutions in its area of competence.
9. Provides advisory and technical secretariat services to other juridical
cooperation bodies or mechanisms in relation to other treaties or agreements
when such services are required; conducts other technical cooperation programs,
in its area of competence, in keeping with the decisions taken by the Heads of
State and Government at Summits of the Americas or at OAS General Assembly
sessions.