Reviews of U.S. Anti-Corruption Efforts

Overview

The United States is committed to transparency, accountability, and integrity as it encourages other countries to make progress in the fight against corruption.  The United States promotes implementation of the existing multilateral anti-corruption architecture to advance our domestic and international anti-corruption efforts.  One important component of this architecture is review of domestic adherence and compliance with anti-corruption standards and obligations, facilitated and conducted by international and regional bodies.  We are proud to be the only government, to our knowledge, that is subject to all major anti-corruption review mechanisms, including those that address related issues such as open government and money laundering.  As we make ourselves available for review, we also participate in reviews of other countries to hold one another accountable, share practices, and ensure collective action.

We believe these review mechanisms make us better as a society, as they provide valuable insights and recommendations to our government to identify opportunities to strengthen our own policies and procedures and the progress we are making in standard implementation.  The United States Government facilitates a collaborative environment with civil society to shape and implement recommendations, and proudly makes these reports public.  We strongly encourage all governments to do the same.  Civil society wishing to engage on U.S. reviews should reach out to AC_Coordination@state.gov.

The U.S. anti-corruption framework has been reviewed by peers and international organizations through the United Nations Convention against Corruption Implementation Review Mechanism, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Working Group on Bribery on the implementation of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, the OECD Working Party on Public Integrity and Anti-Corruption (PIAC), the Organization of American States Mechanism for Follow-Up on the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption Evaluation and Compliance Reviews, the Open Government Partnership Independent Reporting Mechanism, and Financial Action Task Force Mutual Evaluations.

Peer Reviews

United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC):  The United States has been reviewed by peers twice under the UNCAC review mechanism.  The first round of review covered chapter III on criminalization and law enforcement and chapter IV on international cooperation. The second round of review covered chapter II on preventive measures and chapter V on asset recovery.  The full report from the second round review should be made available by the end of 2024.  United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) reviews are available here .

OECD Working Group on Bribery (WGB):  The WGB has conducted four peer evaluations of the United States’ compliance with the Anti-Bribery Convention.  OECD Working Group on Bribery (WGB) monitoring reports and accompanying follow-up reports are publicly available here .

Council of Europe Group of States against Corruption (GRECO):  The United States has gone through five rounds of GRECO evaluations with compliance reporting on adherence to GRECO anti-corruption standards.  Reviews have covered topics such as prevention corruption and promoting integrity in central governments and law enforcement agencies; prevention of corruption with respect to members of parliament, judges, and prosecutors; incriminations and transparency of party funding.  Council of Europe Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) reports are available here .

Organization of American States Mechanism for Follow-Up on the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (MESICIC):  The United States has been reviewed through MESICIC six times.  Reviews have covered topics such as bank secrecy; systems of government hiring and procurement of goods and services; oversight bodies; and prevention of bribery of domestic and foreign government officials.  Organization of American States Mechanism for Follow-Up on the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (MESICIC) reports are available here .

Financial Action Task Force (FATF):  The United States anti-money-laundering, countering the financing of terrorism/countering proliferation financing framework has been assessed four times through the Financial Action Task Force mutual evaluation process.  Financial Action Task Force (FATF) compliance ratings and mutual evaluation reports are available here .

Other Reviews

OECD Working Party on Public Integrity and Anti-Corruption (PIAC):  The OECD Working Party on Public Integrity and Anti-Corruption (PIAC) reviews and publishes data on the U.S. government anti-corruption systems through the OECD’s Public Integrity Indicators, which assess areas such as strategic frameworks, accountability of public policy making, and effectiveness of internal control and risk management.

Open Government Partnership (OGP):  The United States has identified and undertaken important anti-corruption reforms through our OGP National Action Plan process.  While OGP doesn’t offer a government-to-government peer review, their Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) offers important data on these efforts.  The United States has five National Action Plans under the OGP process, and the IRM has reviewed the United States five times.  Open Government Partnership (OGP) action plans and IRM reviews are available here .