The REMJA Working Group on Legal Cooperation in Criminal Matters, since its inception, has played an important role in consolidating a hemispheric process of cooperation in the subject area. In March 2002, at REMJA-IV in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the Ministers of Justice and Attorneys General of the OAS member states recommended, inter alia, the convening of a governmental experts group on legal and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, entrusting particularly those central authorities that are party to inter-American treaties of cooperation in this field with a mandate to draw up a proposed hemispheric plan of action to improve assistance at the hemispheric level and evaluate the implementation of a secure technological tool for information sharing.
Pursuant to the foregoing, the first meeting was held in Ottawa, Canada, in May 2003. There, the central authorities and experts on the subject recommended, among other things, the adoption of measures needed to establish and ensure the functioning of the central authorities for mutual legal assistance and ensure that they can carry out their proper functions effectively, efficiently, and expeditiously.
The results of that first meeting were endorsed by REMJA-V, held at OAS headquarters in April 2004, which was in favor of continuing to hold these meetings and recommended consideration of hemispheric cooperation on extradition at subsequent meetings.
Thus, since the Ottawa gathering, the Working Group has met on four more occasions: in Brasilia, Brazil, in September 2005, when it was decided to include central authorities on extradition; in Bogotá, Colombia, in September 2007; in San Salvador, El Salvador, in March/April 2009; and in Asunción, Paraguay, in May 2012.
At the latter meeting, the Working Group decided to move forward, among other things, on preparation of an efficient and expeditious inter-American legal instrument on extradition, as well as a Protocol to the Inter-American Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Concerning the Use of New Communication Technologies and Hearings by Videoconference and in legal guidelines that serve as a model for establishing joint investigation teams. The Working Group further decided to continue using communication technologies to develop and use new tools to facilitate legal cooperation through the Hemispheric Network for Legal Cooperation on Criminal Matters.
The recommendations adopted at this meeting were considered and approved by REMJA-IX, held in Quito, Ecuador, in November 2012.