Legislation

LEGISLATION OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES

The Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (IACAC) was adopted by the member countries of the Organization of American States on 29 March 1996; it came into force on 6 March 1997. It was the first international convention to address the question of corruption.

The purposes of this Convention are:
  1. To promote and strengthen the development by each of the States Parties of the mechanisms needed to prevent, detect, punish and eradicate corruption; and
  2. To promote, facilitate and regulate cooperation among the States Parties to ensure the effectiveness of 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.
 
For the purposes Convention, the States Parties agree to consider the applicability of measures within their own institutional systems to create, maintain and strengthen:
  1. Standards of conduct for the correct, honorable, and proper fulfillment of public functions.
  2. Mechanisms to enforce these standards of conduct.
  3. Instruction to government personnel to ensure proper understanding of their responsibilities and the ethical rules governing their activities.
  4. Systems for registering the income, assets and liabilities of persons who perform public functions in certain posts as specified by law and, where appropriate, for making such registrations public.
  5. Systems of government hiring and procurement of goods and services that assure the openness, equity and efficiency of such systems.
  6. Government revenue collection and control systems that deter corruption.
  7. Laws that deny favorable tax treatment for any individual or corporation for expenditures made in violation of the anticorruption laws of the States Parties.
  8. Systems for protecting public servants and private citizens who, in good faith, report acts of corruption, including protection of their identities, in accordance with their Constitutions and the basic principles of their domestic legal systems.
  9. Oversight bodies with a view to implementing modern mechanisms for preventing, detecting, punishing and eradicating corrupt acts.
  10. Deterrents to the bribery of domestic and foreign government officials, such as mechanisms to ensure that publicly held companies and other types of associations maintain books and records which, in reasonable detail, accurately reflect the acquisition and disposition of assets, and have sufficient internal accounting controls to enable their officers to detect corrupt acts.
  11. Mechanisms to encourage participation by civil society and nongovernmental organizations in efforts to prevent corruption.
  12. The study of further preventive measures that take into account the relationship between equitable compensation and probity in public service.