Well, sort of: Honduras follows Guatemala's path to fight corruption
The Editorial Board of the New York Times recently celebrated the agreement between the Organization of American States (OAS) and Honduran government to establish an anti-impunity body to help that country overcome some of the challenges that it currently confronts with Honduras Follows Guatemala’s Path to Fight Corruption.
I am more inclined to believe that even a relatively weak MAACIH will make important strides in Honduras and be able to uncover serious acts of malfeasance than it will provide cover, and therefore legitimacy, to a corrupt government. CICIG seems to have read broadly into its mandate in a way that the original signatories might not have envisioned. There's no telling what a MAACIH will look like in a few years. Obviously, a stronger mandate to start off would be have ideal but that doesn't exactly tell us where the body is going to go once it is place.
(See also my 2013 post on How to reduce crime in the world's most violent country with Al Jazeera.)
President Juan Orlando Hernández’s government and the Organization of American States, a regional organization, are in the final stages of negotiating the scope of an anticorruption team led by foreign investigators and judges who would train Honduran officials so they would be better able to prosecute complex public corruption cases.
As currently envisioned, the O.A.S. team would have a weaker mandate than the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, which was established by the United Nations in 2006. It is nonetheless a promising initiative that the United States and others in the international community should support and fund.I think that the international community should work with the Honduran government to design an international commission to help that country strengthen its judicial institutions so that the country can made strides against the devastating effects of corruption. I agree that there are obvious weaknesses with the current proposal (See Christine Wade here and Honduras Culture and Politics here) but there might be some import reforms to the proposal before all is said and done (Putting Teeth in the MACCIH Agreement).
I am more inclined to believe that even a relatively weak MAACIH will make important strides in Honduras and be able to uncover serious acts of malfeasance than it will provide cover, and therefore legitimacy, to a corrupt government. CICIG seems to have read broadly into its mandate in a way that the original signatories might not have envisioned. There's no telling what a MAACIH will look like in a few years. Obviously, a stronger mandate to start off would be have ideal but that doesn't exactly tell us where the body is going to go once it is place.
(See also my 2013 post on How to reduce crime in the world's most violent country with Al Jazeera.)
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