CPI 2024 for the Americas: Corruption fuels environmental crime and impunity across the region

With a regional average score of 42 out of a possible 100 points on the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), the Americas must take urgent action to control corruption. The absence of effective measures promotes human rights violations and increases the influence of economic and political elites and organised crime in public affairs. This environment fosters impunity and weakens countries’ capacity to address climate change, with dramatic consequences for their populations.

Leading the region this year are Uruguay (CPI score: 76), Canada (75) and Barbados (68) – all relatively stable democracies with high levels of transparency and participation. At the other end of the index, states ravaged by organised crime and human rights abuses hold the lowest scores – Haiti (16), Nicaragua (14) and Venezuela (10).

In the Americas, widespread corruption thwarts efforts to combat climate change, denigrating the environment. People, too, endure the repercussions, as the right to live in a healthy environment – mandated by the United Nations – is threatened, and the ancestral territories of Indigenous populations are devastated.

Weak institutions and lack of transparency allow criminal organisations to control wide swathes of the region, where they exploit natural resources with no care for the consequences. This manifests in environmental crimes, from illegal logging in Ecuador (32), and illegal mining in Chile (63) and Colombia (39), to wildlife trafficking in Brazil (34). The organised criminals responsible depend on corruption and money laundering to sustain their operations. In Brazil, for example, a recent report identified 24 instances of fraud, corruption and money laundering stemming from the wildlife trafficking trade.

But it’s not just organised crime. Political and economic elites also exploit the weakness of the system, using procurement fraud, bribery, and the manipulation of environmental policies for their own benefit. In Peru (31), for instance, experts suggest that the modification to the Forestry and Wildlife Law in 2024 responds to particular interests and will encourage illegal deforestation.

Civil society and environmental defenders are crucial in raising awareness and demanding government action against corruption and environmental crime. Despite the commitment of 25 Latin American countries to the Escazu Agreement to protect environmental defenders, the region remains the most dangerous for these activists. In Honduras (22), recent investigations have uncovered the coordinated involvement of businesspeople, politicians and organised crime in at least three recent murders of environmental defenders who had exposed corruption schemes involving these actors.

With a score of 76, Uruguay stands out for strong institutions and environmental data management and effective citizen participation channels. Uruguayans’ trust in their institutions protected the country from the polarisation and populism plaguing many in the region, allowing peaceful presidential elections with high levels of integrity.

In Central America, Guatemala (25) has improved by two points on the CPI after years of significant decline. After suffering long-term state capture by a corrupt elite, the country opened citizen participation channels and began digitalising public functions, to reduce opportunities for corruption. Similar actions have also proven effective in the Dominican Republic (36), which has improved by six points in the last four years. However, both countries still have a long way to go to tackle impunity. Guatemala must urgently strengthen the independence of its judiciary and Public Ministry, which remain under the influence of corrupt networks. The Dominican Republic must accelerate current grand corruption investigations before they are dismissed for failing to meet legal deadlines.

Increasing restrictions on public information and participation are one of the most significant setbacks across the region. In Argentina (37), a new decree redefined concepts of public and private information, limiting the people’s access to information, while the quantity and quality of responses from the executive branch to requests for information declined.

In El Salvador (30), which has dropped nine points since 2015, a new procurement law limited public access to information, allowing significant leeway for the discretion of individual decision makers and hampering accountability in the acquisition of public goods and services.

In Guyana (39), state capture by economic and political elites fosters misappropriation of resources, illicit enrichment and environmental crime. Although the country has created anti-corruption institutions and laws, transparency and law enforcement are very low, and attacks on dissenting voices, activists and journalists increasingly common.

Across the region, weak and opaque judiciaries restrict effective enforcement and justice.

Mexico (26) is on a downward swing, dropping five points in just one year as the judiciary failed to take action in corruption cases like Odebrecht and Segalmex, which involve human rights violations and environmental damage. Despite former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s promises to tackle corruption and return stolen assets to the people, his six-year term ended without any convictions or recovered assets.

The United States (65) also dropped four points amid criticism of its judicial branch.

The Supreme Court instituted a new ethics code in 2023, after a number of high-profile and widely publicised ethical scandals, but serious questions remain about the lack of meaningful, objective enforcement mechanisms and the strength of the new rules themselves.

To overcome corruption and build more peaceful, resilient and sustainable societies, the Americas must guarantee protection for those who speak up and hold power to account. Strategies that enhance democracy – such as increased transparency mechanisms to detect and manage conflicts of interest – are fundamental, but alone are not enough to curb the undue influence of elites and organised crime. To achieve that, it will be crucial to enhance investigations and sanctions, and foster greater regulation of the accountants, bankers and lawyers who enable corrupt actors and criminals to hide their dirty money.