Efforts in Latin America to counter corruption are insufficient and ineffective, according to a report released Wednesday by the Lawyers Council for Civil and Economic Rights of the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice.

Lawyers at more than a dozen firms across the Americas, including global firms Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Shearman & Sterling, collaborated on the report, which found that laws to counter corruption in Latin America are unproductive if they aren't accompanied by implementation.

"Efforts to combat corruption in the region are insufficient, particularly because authorities are not independent and do not have the capacity to implement existing legislation," said Jaime Chavez Alor, Latin America policy director at the Vance Center and coordinator of the council.

Worryingly, lawyers have observed setbacks in the independence and capacity of authorities in Guatemala, Mexico and Peru.

"The legal community must play a more active role in ensuring that the application of the law is more effective," added Chavez Alor.

Furthermore, efforts to prevent corruption in the region fall short while institutions charged with countering corruption lack independence and do not have the capacity to investigate and punish corruption.

The Lawyers Council, which consists of 18 prominent lawyers in private practice from 14 countries in the Americas, aims to combat corruption and to support the rule of law and the work of civil society.

"This report focuses a spotlight on the tragic gap between largely successful efforts by the OECD and others to establish, in many jurisdictions, statutes that check all the boxes, without a commensurate level of political will and investment in the agencies to make effective those laws," Todd Crider, head of Simpson Thacher's Latin America practice and member of the Lawyers Council, said in a statement to Law.com International.

Antonia Stolper, former head of the Latin America affinity group at Shearman, is also a member of the Council.

"What remains strikingly clear is that although in many countries on paper there is an adequate legal framework to combat corruption, the political will to do so with resources, trained personnel and independent prosecutors and judges is just not there," she said.

The Council sought input from additional lawyers across the Americas to compile the report. Some lawyers and organizations agreed to be named as contributors, while others preferred to remain anonymous.

The latest report on corruption assesses legal efforts and shortcomings in preventing and redressing corruption in 17 countries. The first edition of the Latin America Anti-Corruption Assessment was published in 2020.

Legal experts in each country employed quantitative and qualitative criteria to rank the success of anti-corruption efforts from 10 (highest) to zero (lowest). Uruguay came out on top, for the most effective anti-corruption efforts, while Venezuela was at the bottom.

Significant recent setbacks in the region include Brazil's disbandment of the Lava Jato anti-corruption task force in 2021, and a year later its narrowing of preventative arrest, which was a tool used to successfully compel white-collar cooperation and plea bargains.

In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has reduced the pay and resources of Mexican watchdog institutions since taking office in 2018, while launching frequent rhetorical attacks on corruption that have yet to result in actual prosecutions.

Perhaps most dishearteningly, Guatemala disbanded the highly effective United Nations-sponsored International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) in 2019. 

Then the government went after Guatemalan jurists who worked closely with CICIG, such as former attorney general Thelma Aldana. Aldana, now in exile in the U.S., signed on as a collaborator on the Vance Center report, as did exiled former anti-corruption prosecutor Juan Francisco Sandoval.

The Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice of the New York City Bar Association seeks to advance global justice by engaging lawyers across borders to support civil society and encourage an ethically active legal profession.