WASHINGTON, D.C. | January 23, 2020 — The National Whistleblower Center, the United States’ leading nonprofit supporting whistleblowers in their efforts to protect people and the environment from corruption, has established an anti-corruption research partnership with the Iniciativa de Transparencia y Anticorrupción (Transparency and Anti-Corruption Initiative, or ITAC) of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (Monterrey Tec). Based in Monterrey and with 31 campuses across Mexico, Monterrey Tec is Mexico’s largest private university.
María de los Ángeles Estrada, a Mexican lawyer specializing in transparency and anti-corruption and the Executive Director of ITAC, will join NWC as the Senior Advisor on Transnational Crime. In this role, she will advise NWC on ways to assist whistleblowers with information about transnational crime affecting both Mexico and the United States, as well as ways that NWC can otherwise strengthen its programs to address transnational crime.
On the partnership, Professor Ángeles said:
Mexico being one of the countries of the region most affected by corruption, we believe that this partnership will bring us the opportunity to cover the huge need for developing knowledge regarding the practice of whistleblowing, as well as the procedures to protect those that decided to blow the whistle. The fight against corruption in Mexico will never be complete if we don’t include this subject in the political and anti-corruption agendas.
John Kostyack, Executive Director of the National Whistleblower Center, said:
We are excited to begin our first international partnership with Monterrey Tec. Such a respected institution will play a critical role in identifying and disseminating strategies for strengthening whistleblower protections and incentives in order to fight corruption in Mexico, the United States and beyond. We are particularly interested in applying lessons learned from U.S. whistleblower laws to help secure protections for whistleblowers in Mexico. With advisors like Professor Ángeles, the National Whistleblower Center will be well-positioned to respond effectively to the increasingly transnational nature of crime and corruption.
Kostyack noted that Mexico and the U.S. share the Gulf of Mexico and many other natural resources afflicted by lawless behavior. “Because the U.S. and Mexico are among the top countries in global oil and gas production, both countries have a particular need to enlist whistleblowers to help detect and report illegal pollution and other misconduct in these industries,” Kostyack said.
ITAC was created in 2018 as part of the Monterrey Institute School of Government and Public Transformation as an institutional effort to generate a knowledgeable citizenship and a commitment to transparency, accountability, honesty, integrity, and the prevention of and fight against corruption.
For further information, please contact Nick Younger at nick.younger@whistleblowers.org.
