TOM MALINOWSKI ON REMARKS IN MEXICO CITY ON ACCESS TO JUSTICE

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Public Safety and Access to Justice
Remarks
Tom Malinowski
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
Open Government Partnership Steering Committee Ministerial
Mexico City, Mexico
April 23, 2015

As prepared for delivery

Thank you all for having me here. This is a timely gathering. Public safety and access to justice are high priority issues in the minds of many civil society representatives in the United States and, I should say, in the minds of American citizens generally. It is no secret that the conduct of law enforcement has been a headline issue for us this last year. In the United States, we believe that an informed and engaged civil society is essential to ensuring that government faithfully discharges its duties to protect its citizens, to guarantee human rights, and to hold itself and its officials accountable for their actions. We know that we’re not perfect. But we are committed to improvement and to upholding institutions that allow us to address our shortcomings. In this spirit, we’re looking forward to sharing ideas and best practices so that we can all build, or restore, trust between people and their government.

Because in countries where citizens lack trust and confidence in their government, where they do not feel enfranchised in decisions affecting their lives, there are a range of costs. Some can be drawn to violent extremism, others to gangs and crime. Corruption is more likely to increase; police and judicial power more likely to be abused. Basic services are distributed unjustly. Innovation and entrepreneurship are stifled as elites focus their power on maintaining a status quo that enables their unjust enrichment. In such societies, the state may seem like it’s growing stronger at the expense of civil society, but in fact institutions that lose the trust of their people often turn out to be hollow. They are strong until the day they are not; they create turmoil and instability that affects their neighbors and the world.

OGP points the way to an alternative, to creating a space where government and civil society can work together – to build trust and to ensure transparent, accountable, citizen-enabled and innovation-powered governance. Last September, President Obama challenged us to support civil society at home and abroad. The strength and success of nations depends, the President has said, on allowing citizens to solve problems without government interference, and on robust engagement between governments and civil society to advance shared goals.

One of OGP’s grand challenges, around which participants are encouraged to develop commitments, is “Promoting Safer Communities.” This is the most undersubscribed of OGP’s grand challenges, yet it is one of the most critical challenges facing countries in every corner of the world, in part because civilian insecurity can express itself in so many different ways—in gang violence and organized crime, in violent extremism, or officials who are complicit in corruption and human rights violations. Across a range of countries and communities, the security and justice sectors may be simply inadequate in creating secure conditions, guaranteeing access to justice, and protecting against human rights abuses. This creates space for crime and extremism to flourish and limits the potential for individual opportunity and economic growth. And ultimately, the persistence of these conditions can undermine the stability of the political system itself.

There is growing interest among civil society organizations in increasing OGP’s focus on this challenge area, and related issues such as access to justice and the promotion and protection of human rights. Transparency International’s new initiative on Safer Communities in Latin America is one example of how civil society and governments can work toward common goals – and I hope Cecilia will be able to share some of the ideas of this groundbreaking effort. With such examples in mind, we are hoping to start a discussion to explore how OGP can help advance the community security challenge.

In my country, events of the past year have called us to take a fresh look at questions of public safety, access to justice, and the need to strengthen police-community relations. In Ferguson, Missouri, public demonstrations and civil society interventions drew the nation’s attention to the August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown and to concerns about the practices of the Ferguson Police Department. In addition to opening civil and criminal investigations, our Department of Justice sent mediators to create a dialogue between police, city officials, and residents to reduce tension in the community. In addition, DOJ is involved in a voluntary, independent, and objective assessment of the St. Louis County Police Department, looking at training, use of force, handling of mass demonstrations, and other areas where reform may be needed.

As President Obama has said, “[t]he fact is, in too many parts of (the United States), a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color.” At the President’s request, the Attorney General convened roundtable discussions among law enforcement, elected officials, and community members in six cities in December 2014 and January 2015. The President also appointed a Task Force on 21st Century Policing, made up of governmental and civil society members, which engaged a wide range of state, local, and tribal officials; subject matter experts; and community and faith leaders to develop a series of recommendations on how to strengthen public trust and foster strong relationships between local law enforcement and the communities they protect.

As we continue to strive for what our founding fathers termed “a more perfect union,” we encourage you both to make suggestions to us on what has worked for you in addressing such challenges and to consider what in this example may work in your country contexts.

We also want to hear your thoughts on how this set of issues manifests in different regions and countries. How, in your experience, do open government initiatives strengthen public safety and access to justice? Are there ways for OGP to encourage more countries to commit to improvements in this area? And if we consider access to justice and promotion and protection of human rights core parts of the open government agenda, should we build more robust evaluations into the IRM assessment? Finally, we need to come out of this session with more than great thoughts. We invite your specific recommendations on how OGP can empower citizens to play a role in ensuring accountability in the security and justice sectors.

It’s a lot to think about so with that, I’d like to turn to Cecilia for her remarks before we open up the floor for discussion.

SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS AT CLEAN TECH CHALLENGE TAMAYO MUSEUM, MEXICO

THE STATE DEPARTMENT 

Remarks at CleanTech Challenge

Remarks

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Tamayo Museum

Mexico City, Mexico

May 21, 2014

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SECRETARY KERRY: (Applause.) Muy buenas noches a todos. (Inaudible.) (Laughter.) (Inaudible.) What an enormous pleasure for me to be here. I’m really delighted to be able to join you, and I hope everybody can hear me. Can you all hear? Okay?

AUDIENCE: (Off-mike.)

SECRETARY KERRY: (Inaudible) can hear? (Inaudible.)

Dr. Aguirre-Torres, thank you very, very much. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for bringing everybody together here. And I’m particularly happy to be able to be here as we launch the final round of the 2014 CleanTech Challenge. I’m very grateful to Dr. Torres for the visionary leadership that he has shown, and I’m grateful to all of you who are part of this incredibly important exercise, and I’ll talk a little more about that in a minute. But you all have turned the CleanTech Challenge into the top green business plan competition in all of Latin America, and I think you ought to be very, very proud of that. It’s a pleasure to be joining so many contestants, judges, mentors, innovators, and it’s clear that you are not only lifting Mexico’s economy, but with the successes that are achieved, you are designing things that have the ability to lift other people’s economies.

I had a chance just a little while ago to feast briefly – unfortunately, too briefly – on the historic central square with Diego Rivera’s remarkable murals. And I suppose from the prehistoric[1] palaces of the Aztecs to the Zocalo’s towering cathedral to this museum that we are gathered in today, Mexico has always had a very, very special sense of history, a very special commitment to culture and an extraordinary (inaudible). As much as we admire that past, I am not here to talk about the past, nor are you. Every single person here is fixated on the future, and that’s what we’re here to talk about.

And that’s appropriate. Because today, our global economy is more interconnected than it has ever been or than perhaps any of us might have imagined it might have become as fast as it has. I want to emphasize, the work of diplomacy is not just about our shared security and thinking about borders and terrorism and narcotics and all of those kinds of things. That’s not all that is at stake. It is about creating shared prosperity. And no society is going to survive unless it has a strong foundation of shared prosperity. There are many places in the world, including in my country, where the divide between people at the top and people struggling to get to the middle even is much too big. The way we’re going to deal with this is not through political speeches; it’s going to be through innovation, through hard work, through research, through education, and creating the kind of opportunity that creates the products of the future.
I want to emphasize to everybody here, from the day that I became Secretary of State, President Obama and I have been on a mission to emphasize to people that economics is not some separate component of policy. Foreign policy is economic policy and economic policy is foreign policy. And when you look at the world today, with millions of young people, whole countries where 60, 65 percent in a few cases, but many cases 55 and 60 percent of the young people are under the age of 30, 50 percent are under the age of 21, and 40 percent are under the age of 18. And if we don’t provide jobs and opportunity and education that is the entryway to those jobs and opportunity, we’re all going to have a much tougher time making the world safer. It’s just the bottom line.

So what we’re here to do is now us, together, through the green business design and the planning, is celebrate the idea that you can do things that are good for the broad society even as you do well for yourselves. You can make money and make life better.

I know people who only invest on that basis. They always make a judgment about their investment as to what it’s going to create in terms of community and society. So that’s why competitions like this are really so important. A few minutes ago, I had an opportunity with Aguirre to be able to go in and look at the table that had a few successes on it. And it’s incredible what people are able to do with their imagination in the context of today’s challenges.
So President Obama and I – and this is the part that I want to convey in coming here to Mexico City today – we are deeply committed to elevating our partnership with Mexico on innovation, entrepreneurship, and clean energy.

USAID is a very proud sponsor of the CleanTech Challenge, and our challenge is clear: in the past, we used to trade together. Today, due to trade relationships, we build together. In the future, we want to innovate and invent together. And we believe in the possibilities of a Mexico-U.S. strength with respect to that. If any nation has an ability to be able to drive towards that horizon, we believe it is Mexico. And if there’s one person – I mean, I’ll give you an example. Why do I believe that? Well, go look at the table that I just looked at up there. One of the inventions up there is made by a young man, or comes from the mind of a young man, by the name of Gerardo Patino.

Many of you know Gerardo. He won this competition last year, and his story should be an inspiration to everybody. He grew up in the small mountain town of Tepoztlan. But from an early age, he always had a big idea. And he was – Gerardo wanted to protect the environment. So he left the mountains just south of here and he worked really hard to get a first-class education. And when he graduated, he didn’t just cash in, he didn’t just take the easy path. He was prepared to take risks. He wanted to give back, even if that meant traveling a difficult road.
So he founded Terra Humana – Humans for the Earth. And his goal was to reinvent the way that we use water. Gerardo worked with engineers to develop a new technology that treats water so that plants can absorb it better for agricultural irrigation. And his device was really groundbreaking. But guess what? A lot of entrepreneurs will tell you, it’s not an easy thing to take it from a head to the shelf. It’s not easy always to get it out there into the marketplace. And Gerardo will tell you that, that getting farmers to adopt it was like asking them to believe in magic, he says. He literally had to go door to door, show each farmer, farm to farm, to sell his device. But guess what? Now he’s in the sixth year. His invention has moved from generation to generation, year to year. And it can cut agricultural water use by up to 30 percent.

Gerardo, his story, puts a human face on something that is pretty profound and pretty fundamental: The United States and Mexico are growing clean and growing green together. And never forget that what you’re doing is not hypothetical. It’s not a theory. It’s real. And it matters to the lives of real people.

It absolutely matters that the CleanTech Challenge in Mexico has produced nearly 200 clean technology businesses. It matters that the CleanTech Challenge has created more than 2,500 green jobs. It matters that the hundreds of companies that are engaged in this competition – entrepreneurs just like Gerardo – are on track to slash nearly 22 million metric tons of CO2, greenhouse gases, over the next five years.

Now, there’s an old saying in Mexico, and it’s not one that I know because I’ve been here a long time, but I know it. And I think it’s more appropriate for this occasion: “Aquel que no mira hacia adelante, se queda atras” – “If you don’t look ahead, you’re going to be looking behind.” And I look out at all of you and I think that’s accurate.

The question now is not just whether you’re looking ahead. It’s whether or not you can look ahead and translate what you see into something real that people will be able to use. And the secret to that is the meeting we had earlier this morning with your education leaders and our education leaders. The secret is three words: education, innovation, and conservation.
Now, this morning, we talked a lot about that and we are looking to you, the next generation, for the next big idea. But ideas alone are clearly not going to be enough to be able to get things to the market. You need to link the idea to the market and to a viable business plan, and ultimately find the capital, the finance to be able to go out and take it to the marketplace.

So I think that what we’re building between the U.S. and Mexican educational institutions, through the Bilateral Forum on Higher Education, Innovation and Research, is the foundation to be able to take this idea of green business planning and actually turn it into a bigger reality for all of us.

Now, let me just say to all of you, through the Mexico-U.S. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Council – MUSEIC – we are bringing together people from the private sector and the public sector in order to test new ideas. And we’re creating an environment where innovation hopefully can flourish. We’re going to create boot camps for young Mexican entrepreneurs and conferences that connect Latin diaspora communities in the United States with entrepreneurs in Mexico.

This is an important effort. And as part of this commitment, we are going to make a $400,000 grant to the University of Texas in Austin so that it can host four technology startup boot camps. And guess what? One of them is going to take place right here in Mexico. We’re also providing $100,000 to bring the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps model to Mexico. And this is going to help provide entrepreneurship training to Mexican scientists and support their efforts to build cutting-edge technology startups.

I’m also particularly proud of our Peace Corps program here in Mexico, which is focused on science, technology, and the environment. I think we have some of our volunteers here, do we? Raise your hands. Peace Corps volunteers, thank you very much for what you are doing. We deeply appreciate it. (Applause.)

So let me try to make this as real as I can. We are educating and innovating. But we really have an urgency about this. Just before I came down here, I caught about 10 minutes in my hotel room and happened to see CNN, and I saw the temperatures around the world right now – the flooding in Serbia, and the incredible storms that are taking place in France and elsewhere. Thirty-four degrees centigrade in Vietnam today, in May. Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-two, thirty-three in places all around Europe. Unprecedented. Breaks every record that’s ever been seen. What we are seeing around the world is what scientists have predicted. They’re not telling us that we may see global climate change. We are seeing it, and we’re seeing the impacts now. And we are closer and closer to a time where the tipping point that they’ve warned us about is going to be reached. It’s becoming more and more dangerous. All you have to do is look at the last two reports, and particularly the IPCC report of the United Nations, with 97 percent of the scientists of the world warning us about the devastating impact of global climate change if we don’t take action -- and take serious action – soon.

Now, I’d just say to all of you: What is the solution to climate change? It’s very simple. It’s energy policy. Energy policy is the solution to climate change. We have to stop providing energy to buildings, to automobiles, airplanes, houses, electricity plants, with fuel that we know is creating more and more of the problem in a compounded fashion. Fossil fuel coal-fired power plant, so forth.

And I ask you just to think about the possibilities. The marketplace that made America particularly wealthy in the 1990s – a lot of people don’t focus on this. The United States got wealthier in the 1990s than we got during the Gilded Age, during the Rockefellers, Morgans, Pierponts, Fricks, all of that period of no taxes. People got wealthier in the 1990s. And they did it with a $1 trillion market that served 1 billion users – one and one.
The energy market that we are staring at today is right now, today, a $6 trillion market with 4 to 5 billion users, and it’s going to grow to 9 billion users by about 2035, with about $17 trillion of expenditure and maybe more – who knows? So the bottom line is this: The countries, the people, the individuals who design the means of providing that clean, alternative, renewable, sustainable energy are the people who are going to help save the Earth, life itself, as well as help their countries to do enormously better.

And I would just close by saying to all of you, there’s still a debate in some places about why we ought to do it or whether it’s real – amazingly. But let me ask you something. If we do what you know you can do as entrepreneurs, as scientists, as innovators, if we do it, and if we were wrong about the science – which I don’t believe we are, but if we were – and we move to new and sustainable energy, what is the worst thing that could happen to us? The worst thing is we would create millions of new jobs; we would transition to cleaner energy, which hopefully would be homegrown, which makes every country much more secure; we would have cleaner air, which would mean we have less hospitalization for children for asthma and people with particulates causing cancer; and we would have greater energy security for everybody and independence as a result. That’s the worst that could happen.

What’s the worst that happens if the other guys are wrong, the people who don’t want to move in this direction? Catastrophe. Lack of water. Lack of capacity to grow food in many parts of the world. Refugees for climate. People fighting wars over water. Devastation in terms of sea-level rise. We’re already seeing it in the Pacific.

So I’d just close by saying to all of you, this is an important meeting. This is an important initiative. This is how we have a chance to define the future, and this is how Mexico and the United States can do it together – by innovating, conserving, and educating. This is one big challenge.

It was the great Mexican novelist Octavio Paz who said: “Deserve your dream.” Well, I think everybody here deserves it. The question is now: Are we going to go get it? Are we going to live it? That’s what this is about. And I hope, together, we’re going to redefine the future.
Thank you all very, very much.

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[1] pre-Hispanic

HAGEL URGES U.S., CANADA, MEXICO WORK TOGETHER ON THREAT ASSESSMENT AND CYBERSECURITY

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT 

Right:  Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel lays a wreath with Mexican Ministers of National Defense Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda and Adm. Vidal Francisco Soberón Sanz at the Squadron 201 Memorial in Mexico City, April 24, 2014. Hagel participated in the wreath-laying ceremony after attending the second North American Defense Ministerial trilateral meeting among defense ministers of Mexico, Canada and the United States to discuss issues of mutual importance. DOD Photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo.  

Hagel Urges Trilateral Work for Threat Assessment, Cybersecurity
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT, April 25, 2014 – At the second North American Defense Ministerial, with his counterparts from Canada and Mexico, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urged a quick start to trilateral work on continental threat assessment and cybersecurity, and closer work among the three nations on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

The secretary also offered to host the next defense ministerial in Washington in 2016 to continue the important trilateral dialogue.

Meeting in Mexico City yesterday during his first forum with Canadian Defense Minister Rob Nicholson and Mexico’s Secretary of National Defense Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda and Naval Secretary Adm. Vidal Francisco Soberón Sanz, Hagel observed in prepared remarks that a dynamic defense partnership that builds on successes and shared interests, and respects sovereignty concerns, will create a more resilient North America.

“Our presence here today and our commitment to advancing our defense partnership is a recognition that together we can more effectively address the complex security threats facing our countries,” the secretary said during the ministerial plenary session.

Beginning with common challenges, Hagel said the ministers should support a Canadian proposal to produce a digest of collective defense activities and policies.

Similar to an effort begun after the inaugural 2012 North American Defense Ministerial to develop an updated continental threat assessment, he added, such a digest could provide a starting point to coordinate efforts to avoid duplication and maximize scarce resources.

The initial effort to develop a continental threat assessment was a good start to identifying common threats and interests, the secretary said.

“There is merit to updating that assessment to reflect current and future threats and deepen our understanding of our security challenges. I propose that we establish a working group to provide principals an updated, non-binding, continental threat assessment within a year after this ministerial,” Hagel said. “It’s something we can assess when we next meet at the ministerial level.”

Cybersecurity is another common challenge that knows no borders, the secretary said.
Each U.S. defense institution works individually to address potential cyber threats, he said, adding that the Defense Department has worked to elevate the importance of cybersecurity in the National Security Strategy.

In its recently released Quadrennial Defense Review, the department said it would dedicate more resources to cybersecurity, Hagel noted.

“While our defense institutions do not have the lead in our respective countries for cybersecurity, we all share a common interest in [protecting] military communications,” the secretary said. “I propose that we establish a cyber working group to identify potential opportunities to work together to share best practices and lessons learned.”

On humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, Hagel said natural disasters also recognize no national borders and defense institutions provide critical support to lead civilian agencies under such circumstances.

“Each of our nations faces constrained defense budgets [but] the demand for military support to civilian agencies continues to increase as we experience more frequent and larger-scale natural disasters,” the secretary said.

“This was a key … subject of discussion at the [Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or] ASEAN Defense Ministers meeting I attended earlier this month in Hawaii. We are making important progress with our Southeast Asian partners in coordinating military responses to disasters,” Hagel told the ministers, “and I am pleased that we are beginning to do the same in our hemisphere.”

Recalling relief efforts after Hurricane Mitch in 1998, the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the 2004 Indonesian 9.1-magnitude earthquake whose Indian Ocean tsunami killed as many as 230,000 people, the secretary said these natural disasters demonstrate the challenges any one country faces in trying to meet enormous demands for humanitarian assistance in the wake of such events.

The capabilities and experience militaries collectively bring in response to natural disasters can’t be overstated, he added.

“I would like to see our three countries work more closely together in the area of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” Hagel said.

“We should commit to focusing attention on developing our capacity to coordinate, with a goal of maximizing our resources,” the secretary added. “This is an area that would benefit from establishment of a permanent working group tasked with identifying areas of cooperation and implementing coordination protocols as we move forward.”

During their meetings, the ministers agreed with a working group determination that combating transnational crime at the strategic level is best addressed by the security group under the North American Leaders Summit process.
But, Hagel said, “We need to ensure that coordination at the tactical and operational levels continues.”

A Canadian proposal to establish and serve as the initial chair of a permanent secretariat was an important step toward institutionalizing the North American Defense Ministerial, Hagel said.

As members of a regional organization, the secretary said, the ministers should work individually to strengthen hemispheric forums such as the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Defense Board, an international committee of defense officials who develop collaborative approaches on defense and security issues facing North, Central and South American countries, and the Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas, created in 1995 to provide a forum of debate for Northern Hemisphere countries.

“The upcoming October conference of defense ministers in Peru will address hemispheric defense cooperation in key areas such as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, search and rescue, and military health,” Hagel added.

After the meeting, in comments to the press, Hagel said, “These kinds of dialogues and conferences are important for many reasons but especially important it gives the ministers themselves an opportunity to personally exchange ideas and thoughts about our world, about our common interests and about our common challenges.”
The secretary said he and the other ministers have tasked their defense agencies to go forward and put together plans and programs based on initiatives agreed to during the meeting.

After the ministerial, Hagel joined Zepeda and Sanz at a somber wreath-laying ceremony for some of the 250,000 Mexican citizens who served in the U.S. armed forces during World War II.

The memorial to El Escuadron 201 in Mexico City's Chapultepec Park celebrates the 36 experienced combat pilots and the 250 or so electricians, mechanics, radiomen and armament specialists who made up the ground crew of Mexican Fighter Squadron 201, called the Aztec Eagles, who fought alongside U.S. troops in the last months of World War II in Europe.

The squadron left Mexico for the United States in July 1944 and received five months or more of training at facilities around the country. It was the first time Mexican troops had been trained for overseas combat.

The 300 volunteers of the Aztec Eagles were attached to the U.S. Army Air Forces 5th Air Force's 58th Fighter Group during the liberation of the main Philippine island of Luzon in the summer of 1945.

The pilots flew P-47D "Thunderbolt" single-seat fighter aircraft, carrying out tactical air-support missions, according to a 2003 American Forces Press Service article and interview with former Aztec Eagles pilot, retired Mexican air force Col. Carlos Garduno, who said the pilots flew close-air support missions for American and Filipino infantry troops on the ground.

The Aztec Eagles flew 59 combat missions, totaling more than 1,290 hours of flight time, participating in the allied effort to bomb Luzon and Formosa, now Taiwan, to push the Japanese out of those islands.

Immediately after the wreath-laying ceremony, Hagel told a press gathering that the memorial is “a pretty special monument to a country that participated with the allies, with the United States, in World War II.”

He added, “[It was] a brave thing that Mexico did. The service rendered, represented by this memorial, should be remembered.”

The secretary said he was honored to be part of the ceremony and shared a personal connection to the Aztec Eagles and their service to the nation.
“I know what memorials mean to countries and how they reflect their history and their sacrifices, Hagel said. “In fact, the 201st … that represented the expeditionary force of Mexico was attached to an Army Air Corps unit in the Pacific that my father served in, in World War II, with the 13th Army Air Corps.
“So I have some family and special recognition as to what this unit meant and also a personal appreciation,” he continued. “And on behalf of the United States I want to thank the country of Mexico for their contributions to all of our efforts in World War II.”

PROJECT DIAMANTE: REFORMING MEXICO'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

Photo:  Mexican BMW Police Car.  From:  Wikimedia.
FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Project Diamante: Assisting Our International Partners
August 10th, 2012 Posted by Tracy Russo
　
　
Today marks the completion of Phase I training of Project Diamante in Mexico City. Project Diamante is a comprehensive, capacity-building effort developed by professionals of the Department of Justice to reform and modernize Mexico’s criminal justice system.

Since 2009, the Department of Justice has provided major technical assistance to Mexico through the Criminal Division’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development and Training (OPDAT) and the International Criminal Investigative Training Program (ICITAP) as Mexico strives to strengthen local efforts in the investigation of complex crimes.

As part of these programs, our experts, including from the Criminal Division’s Office of Enforcement Operations and Office of International Affairs, have instructed their Mexican counterparts in a variety of critical areas, including criminal procedure code reform, forensic training, drafting of witness protection legislation, investigative techniques, extradition and mutual legal assistance, organizational development, human trafficking, and intellectual property rights violations.

In addition, since February 2012, experienced instructors have been training hundreds of Mexican prosecutors, investigators, and forensic experts for Project Diamante. This collaboration represents a truly historic effort bringing together American and Mexican officials to assist the Latin American nation as it continues its planned transition from an inquisitorial criminal justice system to one that is more open and adversarial.

Project Diamante’s curriculum aims to lay a solid foundation for building – and maintaining – more robust legal institutions by increasing transparency and improving key skills among members of Mexico’s law enforcement community. As Phase I ends, we look forward to the next phases of this ambitious program, which are designed to institutionalize the training and thereby ensure that future generations of Mexican law enforcement receive this vital foundation. In Phases II and III, Mexico will move toward institutionalizing Project Diamante training in its academies so that its next generation of prosecutors, investigators and forensic experts receives the same training and has the same essential foundation for their important work.

On marking the completion of the first class of the Project Diamante initiative, Attorney General Eric Holder said:

"I believe that we can all be encouraged by today’s celebration and the broad-based engagement between our countries. With the personal commitment from the highest levels of my government, we can both confront increasingly complex and cross border issues head on with a renewed sense of cooperation, solidarity and partnership."

Project Diamante is just one of the Justice Department’s many global efforts designed to foster and develop the rule of law among our critical partners around the world. Over the past 25 years, ICITAP and OPDAT have drawn on the department’s resources and our employees’ expertise to strengthen foreign criminal justice sector institutions and enhance the administration of justice abroad.

ICITAP and OPDAT programs support the department’s wider law enforcement objectives and priorities by preparing foreign counterparts to cooperate more fully and effectively with the United States in combating terrorism, human trafficking, organized crime, corruption, financial crimes, and other transnational crimes. They achieve these goals by encouraging legislative and justice sector reform in countries with inadequate laws; improving the skills of foreign prosecutors, investigators, forensic experts and judges; and promoting the rule of law and highlighting the importance of human rights.