Mr. Vice President of the Dominican Republic, His Excellency, Doctor Rafael Alburquerque,
Mr. Attorney General of the Dominican Republic, Judge Francisco Domínguez Brito,
President of the Supreme Court, Doctor Jorge Subero Isa,
Vice Minister, José Manuel Trullols of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Honorable Ministers of Justice, Ministers and Attorneys General,
Distinguished Heads of Delegations,
Members of the Diplomatic and Consular Corps,
Distinguished Permanent Observers of the OAS,
Distinguished participants and guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,


It is a great honor for me to address this most important meeting of the Ministers of Justice or Ministers or Attorneys General of the Americas. We are indeed fortunate to gather in this beautiful city of Santo Domingo, and are grateful for the generous offer of the Government of the Dominican Republic to host this important event and its warm welcome. Specifically I want to express appreciation to the Attorney General and to Ambassador Roberto Alvarez, Permanent Representative to the OAS, for their unwavering support and guidance in bringing this meeting together. And we look forward returning to the capital in a couple of weeks when the Dominican Republic will be hosting the 36th Regular General Assembly of the Organization.

It was certainly an auspicious occasion when the States of this hemisphere decided to institutionalize the meetings of their Ministers of Justice or Attorneys General, known within the Inter-American system by the acronym REMJA. From the very first REMJA meeting, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1997, it quickly became apparent that these meetings afforded a fitting forum and unique vehicle for exploring and agreeing on collective solutions to the challenges and needs that our countries share with respect to the effectiveness and efficiency of their justice systems

As this is the first REMJA I attend as Assistant Secretary General of the OAS, let me reaffirm that the General Secretariat will continue to comply with the mandate expressly conferred upon it, and will continue to provide legal advisory, technical secretariat and administrative support services in all matters related to preparations for these meetings and the necessary follow-up. And it will do so with the enthusiasm and dedication that the importance of these meetings demands. This is our pledge to you, undertaken with the conviction that the agenda that brings us here today is vital to democratic institutionalism and governability, peace and security, development and prosperity in the Americas.

Since the beginning of this year, the new OAS leadership has been putting a new organizational structure in place. The issues that REMJA addresses figure among the priorities of this new structure. Accordingly, the necessary means are being arranged to provide the needed assistance. I shall explain this further as I touch upon some of the specific issues.

Strengthening our judicial systems is an unquestionable and immediate imperative in our region. The 2005 Latinobarómetro Survey found that some 66% of the respondents claim to have little or no confidence in the judicial branch, while only 31% claim to have strong or some confidence in it. The survey also found that only 34% agree with the assertion that “the court system punishes the guilty,” by contrast to the 60% who say they do not believe this is the case. These are indeed disturbing figures and require a policy response.

That having been said, it is important to recall that many countries in our hemisphere have in recent years introduced judicial reforms with support and assistance of international organizations as the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank and our own Organization. These efforts deserve to be recognized and I congratulate those countries with the efforts made and the objectives achieved.

Mr. Vice President,
Distinguished Ministers, Attorneys General

While we gather here in Santo Domingo to discuss ways to improve peace, security and justice in the Americas, many of our countries are facing daringly challenges to fight crime.

In some countries the crime situation has improved, in others it still poses critical and concerning problems.

I am saddened by the recent murder of the Guyanese Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Satyadeo Sawh and some of his relatives and one services guard person early Saturday morning.

On behalf of the OAS I offer our sincere condolences to the wife of Dr. Sawh and his family and to the Government of Guyana.

We are encouraged by the firm response of the Government of Guyana and the rejection by all political parties in Guyana of this heinous crime and the call to find and punish the perpetrators of these horrible crimes.

The objective of strengthening the administration of justice is a complex enterprise. That alone should motivate us to persevere in our endeavors. In my view, we must continue to consolidate the mechanisms of consultation and cooperation that our States have been building within the Inter-American system as a whole and during the course of the REMJA meetings held to date.

The Justice Studies Center of the Americas has played a central role in all this. Created to assist our States with judicial reform and to help improve the training of personnel for the administration of justice, the Center’s latest report reflects the many activities it is conducting to discharge the mandates entrusted to it. Its website reveals the depth of the studies it has been conducting, including those related to criminal procedural reform and justice in the countries of the region.

The Justice Studies Center of the Americas already has a Strategic Plan setting out the objectives that the Center’s Board of Directors has established to steer its work during the period 2005 – 2009. A document which if visionary and aims at continuing the service to the member states, but at the same time will require the full financial support of all member states.

Modernizing the institutions charged with the administration of justice in our countries is clearly vital. However, if our justice systems are to function efficiently and effectively, then equal importance must be attached to mechanisms that enable States to cooperate with each other to fight crime, without their borders becoming barriers that obstruct justice and aid and abet criminals.

No doubt, cooperation between and among States is vital when dealing with transnational organized crime. As we know, the latter does not respect borders and indeed uses them to make detection of its criminal activities more difficult. The use of borders to escape the law and evade justice begins with the planning stage and continues through the commission of the crime. In many cases, borders are even used to conceal the proceeds of the crime.

Fortunately, the member States of the OAS have always appreciated the importance of mutual juridical and judicial cooperation. They have recognized that investigation and suppression of crime to protect the citizenry and maintain peace and public order are essential objectives of any organized society. Hence, the struggle to achieve those objectives cannot stop at national borders. The activities of transnational organized crime affect not just individual countries, but the entire international community as well.

The twenty-five treaties negotiated within the OAS framework on matters related to mutual juridical and judicial cooperation are indicative of the importance that the member States attach to that type of cooperation. Those treaties concern such basic aspects as extradition, mutual assistance in criminal matters, the collection of evidence abroad, execution of preventive measures, and the extraterritorial validity of foreign judgments.

Meetings of central authorities and other experts on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters have been held within the REMJA framework. Mandated by REMJA, these meetings have been held on two occasions, to make recommendations on how best to strengthen this important cooperation mechanism.

At the most recent of these meetings, held in Brasilia in September 2005, specific measures were recommended to enable the States to become more efficient and effective at mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. I urge officials in our countries with authority to implement these measures to enforce these measures and act upon them. It is not my intention to elaborate upon each recommendation, as the agenda for this meeting features a presentation that will enable you to assess them and then promote their implementation in the intended area of application within each of the countries to which they pertain.

The OAS General Secretariat is mindful of its role in providing support to enable the activities entrusted to these meetings to fully materialize. Accordingly, in its most recent administrative reorganization, it has taken the necessary steps to enable the Office of Legal Cooperation of the Department of International Legal Affairs to devote more attention to the delivery of those support services.

Another very useful tool of juridical and judicial cooperation is the so-called Hemispheric Information Exchange Network for Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters and Extradition. Created by a REMJA mandate, the Network is today performing its function of serving as a secure means of sharing information, as will be evident from the presentation planned in this regard for this meeting

Thanks to deliberations within the REMJA framework, our countries now plan to have a Hemispheric Plan of Action against Transnational Organized Crime, which is to be a comprehensive plan encompassing the efforts that each area of the OAS is making to address the various aspects of this problem, pursuant to the Declaration on Security in the Americas.

Preparation and adoption of this plan of action will be no easy task, given the complexity of the problem it will address and the all-encompassing approach that the strategy for dealing with the problem will take. In the end, however, the effort will be well spent, as all our countries will be well served by this plan of action. The various manifestations of transnational organized crime are frequently interrelated; one manifestation may be mistaken for another, or the two can even complement each other. This happens in the most disturbing cases of transnational organized crime, those that inflict the most harm upon society, such as terrorism, corruption, drug trafficking, money laundering, the illicit traffic in firearms, cyber-crime, the trafficking in persons and child pornography..

During this meeting the Chairman of the Special Committee on Transnational Organized Crime will give a presentation on the progress made within the OAS toward achieving the goal of a comprehensive plan of action on this subject. We commend the leadership and efforts of the Mexican Chairmanship of the Special Committee.

In the administrative reorganization of the OAS General Secretariat, we have also taken a comprehensive approach to this problem. Accordingly, plans are to include an organized crime section in the Department for the Prevention of Threats against Public Security.

These REMJA meetings have made specific reference to certain crimes. I would like to take this opportunity to speak about some of those that, I believe, the juridical and judicial cooperation among our countries should target as priorities, given their characteristics and transnational repercussions.

The trafficking in persons has to be one of the most inhumane and degrading practices of organized crime today and poses an enormous challenge to international cooperation in the prosecution of crime. It is transnational by nature and antithetical to the universally recognized values and principles inherent to human dignity. Apathy and inaction in the face of this heinous crime is inexcusable and failure to take concerted action to eradicate it is simply not an option. What is at stake here is the respect that we all profess to have for the other members of our human family as human beings

Thankfully, the international community grasped the seriousness of this problem and approved, within the framework of the United Nations, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, as well as other instruments pertinent to this matter. REMJA, too, was quick to recognize the problem. Acting on its recommendations, a Meeting of National Authorities on Trafficking in Persons was held on Venezuela’s Isla de Margarita in March 2006, and came up with important recommendations on how to deal with the problem. I had the privilege to address the closing session of the most important and productive meeting. Those recommendations will be presented at this meeting.

For its part, the OAS General Secretariat has taken the necessary measures so that its new structure will feature a section on trafficking in persons within the Department for the Prevention of Threats against Public Security.

Another transnational crime is illegal trafficking in firearms, which I consider to be one of the criminal activities most detrimental to humankind. These merchants of death do not recognize ideological or geographical borders, which means that any of the countries you represent could be among their victims. According to the International Red Cross, light weapons alone have claimed more than four million lives since 1990, the majority among the civilian population. Almost three million of those lives were women and children. The United Nations estimates that the cost of the violence associated with weapons of that type represents 14% of the GDP of Latin America in the form of personal injuries and property damage.

The countries of the American hemisphere have every reason to be proud of the way in which together, they decided to confront this scourge and approved, under the OAS umbrella, the Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials – CIFTA. This is universally recognized to be a pioneering document that has inspired the adoption of other international instruments on related topics.

One innovation that CIFTA introduced was its Consultative Committee, a body established under the Convention for purposes of cooperation and follow-up. Thanks to the Committee, important strides have been made in the Convention’s implementation in the six years since it was adopted. Because of the Committee’s efforts to promote signature and ratification of the Convention, 33 of the 34 States of the American hemisphere have signed the Convention and 26 have already deposited their instruments of ratification.

The OAS General Secretariat has provided the Consultative Committee with support services. However, to strengthen and further specialize the technical secretariat services that the Committee’s activities require, the Secretariat’s recent restructuring planned to shift these services from the Office of Legal Cooperation to the Small Arms and Light Weapons Section of the Department for the Prevention of Threats against Public Security.

Lastly, I would like to comment briefly on cyber-crime. While the authors of crimes of this type can easily remain hidden in the anonymity of cyberspace, the consequences of their crimes are felt in the most far-flung places. Borders pose no obstacle whatever. The perpetrators have no need of passports and visas and need not fear security measures at customs and immigration control points. Although they may be the intellectual or material authors, they need not be physically present in the country in which their crimes are committed.

Cyber-crime can have a very real and profound impact on people’s lives, undermining their sense of personal security or disrupting entire communities. When one thinks of the effects of cyber-crime on the individual, the crimes that immediately come to mind are identity theft, fraud and embezzlement, and the deception practiced to lure victims of human trafficking and sexual abuse. In the case of disruption caused to entire communities, the most obvious examples are denial of service attacks or hacking to sabotage data systems used by the State to conduct its “on-line government” programs, which have by now become an integral part of efficient government administration.

REMJA understands the magnitude of this problem, which is becoming more complex by the day and more disturbing to the international community. Acting on REMJA’s proposals, the Group of Governmental Experts on Cyber-Crime has already held four meetings. The most recent, at OAS headquarters in Washington in February 2006, produced important recommendations on how best to confront this new and sophisticated type of crime. A presentation will be delivered at this meeting concerning the content of the Group’s recommendations. You will, I am certain, appreciate that these are practical recommendations that can be implemented without much difficulty.

The universal awareness of the international repercussions of cyber-crime should be used to forge even closer cooperative ties with international organizations and bodies that have been working on this problem. I am pleased to refer to the assistance that the OAS provided to the international conference organized by the Council of Europe under the slogan “Cybercrime: A Global Challenge, A Global Response,” held in Madrid, Spain, in December 2005. The results of that conference will be the topic of a presentation slated for this meeting.

I cannot bring these remarks to a close without mentioning one issue that certainly ranks among those with the greatest impact on the efficacy of the criminal justice system in our countries. It is one that you have previously addressed during these meetings and that you will probe still further at this REMJA. The penitentiary and prison systems are, in my view, essential to accomplishing the ultimate purposes of the administration of criminal justice.

If prison and penitentiary systems are not functioning properly, how can society and the lives, good name and property of its members be truly protected against those who would attack them; how can crime be fully suppressed and criminals ever truly re-socialized and rehabilitated?

How pointless it would be to successfully conduct a criminal case in which a defendant is tried, convicted and sentenced according to the law, only to have that person escape because of an inefficient prison system; or worse still, to continue his life of crime from inside the prison walls, often committing more heinous crimes with greater ease because he is now a member of one of the many gangs that populate our prisons.

Let us consider, too, the plight of those confined in prisons so overcrowded and with such poor infrastructure that they do not afford the minimum conditions necessary for prisoners to be able to satisfy the basic needs that every human being has, much less to be re-socialized and rehabilitated.

The developments that have materialized in this area within the framework of REMJA are doubtless reason to persevere in the quest for answers to the problems of our prison and penitentiary systems. While not easily resolved, these problems do share certain common features in the majority of our countries and can therefore be more effectively addressed by harnessing the power of hemispheric cooperation.

The OAS General Secretariat will continue to provide its support services to the meetings of the authorities responsible for penitentiary and prison policies, the first of which was held by REMJA mandate. It came up with important recommendations on ways to strengthen cooperation among our States in this area.

I am certain that as at previous REMJA meetings, the deliberations on this and the other equally important items that figure on the agenda planned for this meeting will be profound and productive. Given the qualifications of the persons who will be introducing these topics at this meeting, the REMJA that begins today is certain to have a highly positive outcome.

I wish you every possible success in your endeavors and assure you once again of the OAS General Secretariat’s readiness to provide you with the cooperation you require.

Thank you.