OEA - CP - Resolución CAAP GT RVPP 578

PERMANENT COUNCIL OF THE OEA/Ser.G

ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES CAAP/GT/RVPP-578/26 16 March 2026

COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATIVE Original: English AND BUDGETARY AFFAIRS Working Group on the Review of OAS Programs _________________________________________________________________________________

LEGAL OPINION REGARDING THE NATURE OF AND AUTHORITY FOR THE

INSTRUMENT UNDER WHICH THE CODE OF ETHICS

OF THE GENERAL SECRETARIAT IS ADOPTED

(Prepared by the Department of Legal Services at the request of the Chair of the Working Group) The Code of Ethics of the General Secretariat is an internal regulatory instrument establishing ethical principles and standards of conduct applicable to the personnel of the General Secretariat in the performance of their functions. In addition, it consolidates standards of conduct reflected in other internal rules of the Organization, including the CPR Rules and the Staff Rules, which are likewise adopted by the Secretary General. The authority to adopt this type of instrument derives directly from the Charter of the OAS, whose Article 113(b) provides that the Secretary General shall determine the number of officials and employees of the General Secretariat, appoint them, and regulate their duties and responsibilities. This authority is further reflected in the General Standards to Govern the Operations of the General Secretariat (General Standards), whose Article 12(f) provides that the Secretary General shall issue the administrative provisions necessary for the proper functioning of the General Secretariat. This allocation of responsibilities is consistent with the distribution of functions among the organs of the Organization established in the Charter. Article 109 of the Charter provides that the Secretary General shall direct the General Secretariat, serve as its legal representative, and be responsible to the General Assembly for the proper fulfillment of its obligations and functions. It is also consistent with the status of the personnel of the Organization as international civil servants, as reflected

in the General Standards, in accordance with which staff members, in the performance of their functions, are subject exclusively to the authority of the Secretary General and are responsible only to the General Secretariat, thereby ensuring their independence from Member State governments. Within this framework, instruments establishing principles and standards of conduct applicable to the personnel of the General Secretariat, such as the Code of Ethics, fall squarely and exclusively within the Secretary General’s administrative authority to regulate the duties of the staff. The institutional background of the Code confirms this nature. The first Code of Ethics of the General Secretariat originated from a mandate of the General Assembly requesting the development of a code of values and ethics and the presentation of a draft to the Permanent Council “for its information2 and consideration” (AG/RES. 1 (XLII-E/11) rev. 1, October 31, 2011). During 2012, the draft Code was presented by the Secretary General and considered in the Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Affairs (CAAP) and in the Permanent Council, after which it was adopted by the Secretary General on November 1, 2012. The current Code, adopted by the Secretary General on August 4, 2017, constitutes a revision of that original instrument, reflecting subsequent developments in the General Secretariat’s internal regulatory framework, including the adoption of the Whistleblower Protection Policy and the Workplace Harassment Policy. Both the original Code and its subsequent revision were adopted through Executive Orders of the Secretary General, the normative instrument through which the Secretary General exercises the authority conferred by the Charter to regulate the duties and responsibilities of the personnel of the General Secretariat. General Assembly resolution AG/RES. 3011 (LIII-O/23), Program-Budget of the Organization for 2024, instructed the General Secretariat to prepare a proposal for the update of the Code of Ethics “with a view to adoption by the Permanent Council,” a mandate reiterated in substantially similar terms

in the program-budget resolutions for 2025 and 2026. This mandate reflected the interest of Member States in reviewing the proposed update to the Code as it concerned standards of conduct applicable to the Secretary General and Assistant Secretary General and constituted a particular deviation in the practice concerning the approval of internal normative instruments of the General Secretariat. In this context, the mandate should be understood as providing an opportunity for the Permanent Council to review the proposal submitted by the General Secretariat and express its agreement with its content, following which the Code would be formally adopted by the Secretary General pursuant to his authority under Article 113 of the Charter and Article 12 of the General Standards. Further, and consistent with this understanding, this mandate relates particularly to the update to the Code currently under consideration and should not be interpreted as modifying in any way the general framework governing the adoption of internal normative instruments of the General Secretariat, nor as establishing a requirement that future revisions of the Code of Ethics, or of other internal instruments adopted by the Secretary General whose standards of conduct underlie the Code, such as the Staff Rules, the CPR Rules, the Workplace Harassment Policy, or the Whistleblower Protection Policy, be subject to the same process.