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 Panama, Chile, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and The Bahamas.

These reports were agreed in the framework of the seventeenth meeting of the Committee that ended on September 16, 2010 and corresponds to the third group of countries that are evaluated in the context of the Third Round of Review of the Mechanism.

The reports examine the legal and institutional framework of the states and make specific recommendations for their improvement 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.

Finally, 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.

Civil society organizations participate in this evaluation process by furnishing information regarding the topics under review, by both submitting documents and making presentations at the beginning of this meeting. The response by the states, the documents provided by civil society organizations, and the adopted reports are public and can be consulted on the Anti-Corruption Portal of the Americas.

During this third evaluation round, similar reports have been adopted on Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Ecuador, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago and Colombia.

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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