Introduction

Political corruption has been a Caribbean problem for centuries. It was not until the early 1990s, however, that the need to address the corruption problem became part of regional political discourse. Under increasing international and domestic pressure to do something about their corruption problems, the 34 Western Hemispheric heads of state and government attending the 1994 Miami, Florida, Summit of the Americas I (all less Cuba) established Combating Corruption as one of the 23 action items in their final declaration. This led to the March 1996 signing of the Organization of American States' (OAS) Inter-American Convention Against Corruption. By the late 1990s, the regional interest in anti-corruption programs appeared to be waning. At the 1998 Santiago, Chile, Summit of the Americas II, the Combating Corruption action item received only minimal discussion. By mid-2000, four years after its initial signing, only 18 OAS member states had ratified the Convention. At the same time, no OAS member had adopted the comprehensive package of domestic legislation required for the Convention's full implementation. The lack of sustained anti-corruption interest was especially evident in the Caribbean where many states neither signed nor ratified the OAS Convention. ¹