Category Archives: Announcement

“Combating Grand Corruption: Is International Law the Answer”: The Debate Continues at Harvard Law School

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As readers of this blog know, U.S. Federal District Judge Mark Wolf has been vigorously advocating for the creation of a new International Anticorruption Court (IACC), modeled on the International Criminal Court (ICC), that would have jurisdiction over grand corruption committed by senior national leaders and their associates. His proposal has attracted a great deal of attention, including a critique that I posted a little while back. The proposal also relates to more general questions about the appropriate role for international law and institutions in fighting grand corruption.

Last week, the Harvard Law and International Development Society (LIDS) organized a fantastic symposium on “Combating Grand Corruption: Is International Law the Answer” to tackle some of these issues. Judge Wolf and Luis Moreno Ocampo, who served as the first prosecutor at the ICC, gave opening and closing remarks.

Fortunately the conference was recorded; here are the links to Part One and Part Two. The whole thing is worth watching, but for those of you who are particularly interested in seeing Judge Wolf and I square off in person, his opening remarks in support of the IACC proposal can be found from 4:26-24:43 of Part One, my critique is at Part One, 1:32:20-1:45:52, and his closing remarks (which include but are not limited to a rebuttal of my critique) are at Part Two, 1:11:14-1:30:12.

Other highlights include:

  • Mr. Moreno Ocampo’s opening and closing remarks (Part One, 25:03-42:37 and Part Two, 1:06:18-1:11:06)
  • Akaash Maharaj, Executive Director of the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption, on the range of possible international legal responses to grand corruption (Part One, 1:17:00-1:32:07)
  • My Harvard Law School colleague Alex Whiting, former Prosecutions Coordinator at the ICC, on what we can learn from the ICC experience for the proposed IACC (Part One, 1:46:00-1:58-40)
  • Charles Duross, former head of the FCPA Unit at the U.S. Department of Justice, on how the FCPA helps combat grand corruption and what we could do to make it more effective in doing so (Part Two, 3:33-18:17)
  • GAB’s very own Rick Messick on more practical, achievable measures that could make a difference in reducing grand corruption (Part Two, 18:35-29:39)
  • Robert Leventhal, Director of Anticorruption Programs and Governance Initiatives at the U.S. State Department, on measures that the U.S. government is undertaking that make it harder than ever to be a kleptocrat (Part Two, 29:47-42:40)

Anticorruption Bibliography — February 2015 update

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An updated version of my anticorruption bibliography is available from my faculty webpage.  A direct link to the pdf of the full bibliography is here, and a list of the new sources added in this update is here.  As always, I welcome suggestions for other sources that are not yet included, including any papers GAB readers have written.

Anticorruption Bibliography — January 2015 Update

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An updated version of my anticorruption bibliography is available from my faculty webpage.  A direct link to the pdf of the full bibliography is here, and a list of the new sources added in this update is here.  As always, I welcome suggestions for other sources that are not yet included, including any papers GAB readers have written.

National Anticorruption Strategies: A Request for Assistance

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GAB editor-in-chief Matthew Stephenson and I have been asked by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which serves as the Secretariat to UNCAC’s Conference of States Parties, to write a guide to support the development and implementation of effective and sustainable national anti-corruption strategies.  The guide will contain an outline of the key stages in the development of a national strategy, an explanation of the role different stakeholders can play in developing it, models for implementing a strategy, and a discussion the methods for monitoring and evaluating its implementation. Good practices and success stories at all stages of the process — development, implementation, monitoring and reporting — will be highlighted.

We are in the early stages of collecting information and would welcome readers help in identifying useful materials: copies of national strategies, evaluations of their effectiveness, and so forth.  We will of course build upon the fine analysis of Asian countries’ experiences with national strategies that the UNDP Bangkok office released in December, which I wrote about here.  We also have the very useful policy notes posted on the websites of U4 and TI.

To date we have identified 60 plus the countries that have or have had a national anticorruption strategy.  They are listed below.  Additions to this list would also be welcome.

Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Bosnia And Herzegovina, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, Greece, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Southern Sudan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, UK, Ukraine, Vietnam

Anything from newspaper stories to policy papers to academic analyses would be appreciated.  Thanks to Google translate, we will be happy to receive material in any language. You can post suggestions either as a comment on this post, or send your input using the contact page. Thanks in advance!

Updated Anticorruption Bibliography – December 2014 Update

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An updated version of my anticorruption bibliography is available from my faculty webpage.  A direct link to the pdf is here.  (And, if you only want to see the new additions in this update, you can find those sources here.) As always, I welcome suggestions for other sources that are not yet included, including any papers GAB readers have written.

Happy International Anti-Corruption Day!

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As some readers of this blog already know, today (December 9th) is International Anti-Corruption Day. Other readers may be wondering, “Huh? International Anti-Corruption Day? What’s that?”

I’m glad you asked. When the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) was opened for signature in 2003, the General Assembly’s resolution included a specific plank “decid[ing] that, in order to raise awareness of corruption and of the role of [UNCAC] in combating and preventing it, 9 December should be designated International Anti-Corruption Day.” (And you thought the UN General Assembly never decided anything important. Shame on you.)

So what should you do to celebrate International Anti-Corruption Day? It’s easy to make fun of things like this — and as should be clear, that’s a temptation I can’t entirely resist. But at the same time, I do think that raising awareness of the issue is important. And though I can’t find much about attention-raising activities in conjunction with this year’s International Anti-Corruption Day, apparently last year the UN tried to take the opportunity to launch a campaign — with slogans, Tweets, etc. — to get more attention to the issue. You can check out their website on how to “celebrate” International Anti-Corruption Day here.

One last Anti-Corruption Day thought: As I said, I’m all for raising more awareness. But at the risk of sounding like a Grinch, I think it’s fair to raise the question whether publicity gambits like this are starting to outlive their usefulness. Many in the anticorruption community–particularly those who started working on these topics in the 1990s or earlier, when it was definitely treated as marginal in many quarters–have spent a lot of time and energy trying to raise awareness about the issue. And the thing is, they’ve succeeded. The international community is aware of the problem, and takes it seriously (at least in the sense of acknowledging corruption as a legitimate concern). As I see it, the anticorruption movement is now in a tricky transitional phase: The first generation won an important battle, by getting corruption on the international agenda. The new generation needs to make more progress on figuring out what exactly to do about it. So by all means, use the International Anti-Corruption Day gimmick as a way to raise awareness. But at the same time, let’s recognize that we’re reaching the point where raising awareness isn’t really a central issue anymore.

Anticorruption Bibliography – November 2014 Update

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An updated version of my anticorruption bibliography is available from my faculty webpage.  A direct link to the pdf is here.  As always, I welcome suggestions for other sources that are not yet included, including any papers GAB readers have written.

Upcoming UK Parliamentary Hearing on the ICAI Criticisms of DFID — Opportunity to Comment

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Last week, I discussed the brewing controversy over the most recent report from the UK’s Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), which sharply criticized the UK Department for International Development (DFID) approach to anticorruption in its aid programs. In addition to noting some of the critical commentary the report has already received, I added some criticisms of my own. It turns out that the report itself, and possibly also the critical commentary, has prompted the UK House of Commons’ International Development Committee to schedule a hearing on December 10. In connection with that hearing, the Committee has invited any interested party to submit written statements or evidence on the issues raised by the ICAI report; the online form for submitting comments is here, and the deadline for written submissions is November 28 (two weeks from today).

Although obviously of greatest interest to those in the UK or in countries that receive substantial DFID aid, the controversy and questions surrounding the ICAI report raise larger questions about the approach to anticorruption in development assistance, as well as questions about methodology and measurement. I hope that many GAB readers with interest in these matters will read the ICAI report and submit comments to the Parliamentary Committee. There is an opportunity here to raise some of these crucial issues in a much more public and prominent forum than is typical.

Transparency International’s Laudable Campaign for Beneficial Ownership Transparency

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As many readers of this blog are likely aware, Transparency International–the leading worldwide anticorruption NGO–has made the corporate secrecy problem a centerpiece of its “Unmask the Corrupt” campaign. TI is focusing in particular on the problem of shell companies whose true (or “beneficial”) owners are unknown, and which can be used by corrupt officials and businesspeople to shelter and launder stolen public funds. The TI Secretariat, along with several of TI’s national chapters, have been pushing for action at both the national and international level, especially for reforms that would make transparent the beneficial owners of these companies. I wanted to use this post as an opportunity to call attention to two of TI’s recent efforts in this area, which might be of interest to GAB readers:

  • First, the TI Secretariat wants to use the G20 leaders’ summit this weekend in Brisbane, Australia as an opportunity to raise awareness of the issue and to put pressure on the G20 leaders to commit to take action on this issue. To this end, TI organized an open letter, signed by a number of prominent civil society activists and other public figures (including John Githongo, Desmond Tutu, and Richard Goldstone), calling on the G20 leaders to outlaw secret company ownership and mandate public registries of the true beneficial owners of all legal entities.
  • Second, as I noted last month, the US government is currently in the midst of a rulemaking process to strengthen due diligence and disclosure requirements on beneficial ownership. TI-USA submitted a set of supportive but critical comments on the rule, urging the US Treasury Department to expand the definition of “beneficial owner” to include individuals who control the entities through means other than a formal management position, to apply the new rules apply to existing accounts as well as new accounts, and to require financial institutions not only to verify the identity of the (alleged) beneficial owner, but to independently verify that the person listed as the beneficial owner is in fact the true beneficial owner.

TI’s efforts in this direction are most welcome, and I hope they have some impact on the G20 summit and the development of new rules in the US (and elsewhere). I’m happy to take this this opportunity to publicize TI’s efforts, and I hope some of our readers out there might be able to contribute to the push that TI and other organizations are making on this issue.

Anticorruption Bibliography – October 2014 Update

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An updated version of my anticorruption bibliography is available from my faculty webpage.  A direct link to the pdf is here.  As always, I welcome suggestions for other sources that are not yet included, including any papers GAB readers have written.