The Inter-American Convention against Corruption, adopted in March, 1996, in Caracas, Venezuela, is the first legal instrument in this field which recognizes the international reach of corruption and the need to promote and facilitate cooperation between states in order to fight against it.

The purposes of the Convention are:

• To promote and strengthen the development by each of the States Parties of the mechanisms needed to prevent, detect, punish and eradicate corruption.
  
  

• To promote, facilitate and regulate cooperation  among the States Parties to ensure the effectiveness of the measures and actions to prevent, detect, punish and eradicate corruption in the performance of public functions and acts of corruption specifically related to such performance.

This Convention establishes a set of preventive measures; provides for the criminalization of certain acts of corruption, including transnational bribery and illicit enrichment; and contains a series of provisions to strengthen the cooperation between its States Parties in areas such as mutual legal assistance and technical cooperation, extradition and identification, tracing, freezing, seizure and forfeiture of property or proceeds obtained, derived from or used in the commission of acts of corruption, among others.