The Department of Legal Cooperation (Technical Secretariat for Legal Cooperation Mechanisms)

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.