Category Archives: Guest Commentary

Guest Post: Civil Society, Big Ideas, and the 2016 London Anticorruption Summit

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Ben Cowdock of Transparency International UK (TI-UK) contributes the following guest post:

Earlier this year, UK Prime Minister David Cameron gave a speech in Singapore in which he vowed to take a stand against corruption at home and abroad, and announced that London would host an International Anticorruption Summit in 2016. We at TI-UK are optimistic that this summit will provide an expanded opportunity for civil society to contribute, and indeed we are hopeful that we may be entering a period of unprecedented involvement of the wider anticorruption community in the formulation of national and global policy. This would signify an exciting new direction for policymakers—one which the anticorruption community has long advocated. A more open and inclusive process is beneficial for society as a whole; policy is increasingly built on consensus and shared learning, resulting in choosing the right path to tackling corruption.

More concretely, in response to the Prime Minister’s announcement and in preparation for this global summit, Transparency International UK (TI-UK) has been assembling a database of the current “big ideas” on anticorruption policy from the academic, activist, business and policy communities. The database, currently contains over 100 “game-changer” policy proposals (including a number of suggestions put forward and debated on this very blog (such as truth commissions and the potential benefits of expanding UNCAC article 35). To enhance academic, public, and policy awareness of the range of current policy proposals, the database will be published in the near future with full attribution to authors and researchers. We hope this will lead to further debate on which ideas have the potential to significantly improve anti-corruption efforts and deter corruption. We also hope that the summit will provide an opportunity to showcase the growth of “anticorruption hacking”, a collective action phenomenon in which civil society generates pioneering technological approaches to fighting corruption.

The London summit represents a chance for new ideas to come to the fore and be at the heart of UK and global effort against corruption. Civil society has already made a huge contribution in the overwhelming response to TI-UK’s call for big idea policies, which we hope will be influential in shaping the agenda of the summit and demonstrating an international commitment to making a change for the better. If you have any big “game-changing” ideas that you believe would further UK or international anti-corruption efforts, we encourage you to leave an overview in the comment!

Guest Post: Promoting Ambient Accountability with Architecture and Design

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GAB is delighted to welcome back Dieter Zinnbauer, Programme Manager at Transparency International, who contributes the following guest post:

Corrupt transactions do not merely “take place” – they take place in a place, a specific place at a specific time: at customs authorities and land registrars, at hospital wards, police road-stops, school headmaster offices, or the offices of social benefits agencies. The fact that most form of corruption occur in physical locations may seem both obvious and unimportant, but in fact there may be some promising ways to modify the physical settings for government-citizen interactions that would make various kinds of corruption less likely to occur (or easier to detect and remedy). This possibility builds on the observation that many corrupt transactions are fragile forms of social exchange, often involving power asymmetries, established social roles, norms, and expectations. These social dynamics are critical to enabling the parties to engage in an illegal transaction that could get both of them into a lot of trouble. These complex social dynamics and expectations are affected by the physical environment; modifications to that environment can therefore disrupt or alter the social dynamics of a specific situation—creating feelings of empowerment for potential targets of extortion and feelings of uncertainty and anxiety for those who would propose corrupt exchanges.

We should therefore think about ways to use architecture and design to empower citizens to become more aware of their rights and entitlements, to better understand and assess the services they receive, and to register complaints and seek remedies more effectively. I call this concept “ambient accountability.” I have developed this idea more fully in two recent papers (here and here), but here are some concrete examples of how this sort of intervention might work in other contexts: Continue reading →

Guest Post: Why We Should Be Excited About SDG 16

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GAB is delighted to welcome back Daniel Dudis, Senior Policy Director at Transparency International-USA, who contributes the following guest post:

On September 25th, the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs identify development priorities and set measurable targets for progress that are to be met by 2030. They also replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted in 2000 and set to expire at the end of this year. The MDGs were aimed primarily at improving living conditions in developing countries, and focused on reducing extreme poverty and improving health, education, sanitation, and nutrition. Unfortunately, progress towards achieving the MDGs has been uneven at best. Notably absent from the MDGs were any commitments on improving governance or reducing corruption. Given that in most countries, government is the primary service provider for healthcare, education, and sanitation, and that government provides nutrition assistance and sets economic policy, the absence of any commitments to improve governance or reduce corruption was a notable blind spot. Honest, accountable, efficient government is the foundation upon which economic development and improved service delivery are built.

Happily, goal 16 of the SDGs fills this lacuna. Goal 16, which seeks to promote just, peaceful, and inclusive societies, includes (among other governance-related targets) significant reductions in illicit financial flows, progress on the recovery and return of stolen assets, and substantial reductions in corruption and bribery.

It is easy to be skeptical about the utility of ambitious international agreements such as the SDGs. Indeed, Matthew’s post last week, which criticized the Goal 16’s anticorruption targets on the grounds that they are ill-suited to quantitative measurement of progress, and Rick’s post yesterday, exemplify that view. Such skepticism, however, is misplaced. The inclusion of these targets in Goal 16 of the SDGs is an important step forward as it represents a clear endorsement by the community of nations that good governance and the fight against corruption are integral parts of the global development agenda. Continue reading →

Guest Post: Pro-Transparency Organizations Fail To Practice What They Preach

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Till Bruckner, freelance journalist and Advocacy Manager for Transparify (an initiative that rates the financial transparency of think tanks and advocacy groups), contributes the following guest post in a private capacity:

“Transparency” is the watchword of the international anticorruption movement, a fact perhaps best illustrated by Transparency International’s choice of name. And partly due to the efforts of TI and many other groups, the world has changed for the better: transparency has become the new norm. Yet many of the anticorruption groups themselves need to wake up to this reality, and become more transparent themselves. Indeed, those of us in the anticorruption community would do a lot better if we started to walk our transparency talk.

This fact was driven home to me in a recent exchange I had with Professor Peter Eigen, the living legend who helped found Transparency International, about his newest venture, the Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI). FiTI aims to curb corruption in international fisheries, and if it works as planned, it could have a positive impact on many issues, including overfishing, food security, and public revenue in developing countries. Somewhat unconventionally, FiTI is financed by the government of Mauritania, whose controversial president, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, first announced the initiative. (see my recent article in Foreign Policy for more background.) I asked Professor Eigen about Mauritania’s financial support for the FiTI; he explained that Mauritania was only sponsoring the initial conceptual phase of FiTI, and he persuasively argued that its government would have no undue influence, let alone control, over outcomes. I then asked Professor Eigen how much Mauritania was paying his organization (the Humboldt-Viadrina Governance Platform) in connection with its work on the FiTI project, but he told me he didn’t want to disclose the figure. He explained:

“This is a normal consulting arrangement of our not-for-profit organization with the [Mauritanian] government. We do not feel it would be proper for us to disclose details of contracts. If media or taxpayers want to find out how [the] Government spends its budget, they can ask the Government. This is for FiTI an unimportant side issue.”

Professor Eigen added two more points. First, his organization would at some later point account for the money on its website. Second, he himself would be working “pro bono.”

Summary: There’s no influence peddling; the use of taxpayer funds is a domestic issue; all money will be accounted for; and nobody is lining their pockets. So, everything is okay, right?

No, it’s not okay at all. Here’s why: Continue reading →

Guest Post: The Blagojevich Case and the Line Between Corruption and Horse-Trading

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Jennifer Rodgers and Jacob Watkins, respectively Executive Director and Program Coordinator for the Columbia University Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (CAPI), contribute the following guest post:

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was recently back in the news, but this time for something he didn’t do wrong, when the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals vacated 5 of the 18 counts on which Blagojevich was convicted in 2011. The appellate court’s decision hinged upon the distinction between illegal corruption and legal (if distasteful) political horse-trading, an issue recently touched upon in the decision by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to uphold former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s public corruption convictions (which Matthew discussed here). The outcome of the Blagojevich appeal shows that under current U.S. law, whether or not a public official’s deal-making is illegal depends upon what exactly the official is bargaining for. Political horse-trading–exchanging one official act for another official act–is not a crime under U.S. federal law, but exchanging an official act for a private benefit is. The decision in the Blagojevich provides a useful opportunity for thinking more generally about how the law ought to draw that difficult line. Continue reading →

Guest Post: Fishing for the Right ACA Heads, and Keeping Them Safe

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Sofie Arjon Schütte, Senior Advisor at the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, contributes the following guest post, adapted from her recent U4 research paper, “The fish’s head: appointment and removal procedures for anti-corruption agency leadership”:

There has been much discussion on this blog (see here, here, and here) about the requirements for an effective, independent anticorruption agency (ACA). A number of factors are important, including (as emphasized in the Jakarta Statement) the ACA’s mandate, permanence, budget security, autonomy over financial and human resources, and internal and external accountability mechanisms, to name a few. But among the many important factors, the procedures for appointment and removal are particularly critical. As the saying goes, “a fish rots from the head down”: when the leadership of an organization is unethical or ineffective, these failings infect the entire organization. Undue external interference with an ACA is likely to target the head, and a co-opted or corrupted ACA head can do serious damage to the effectiveness and reputation of the ACA.

My research on the appointment and removal procedures for heads of 46 ACAs around the world has highlighted some of the important factors that can promote or undermine effective, ethical, and independent ACA leadership. Given different contexts, no specific set of procedures for appointments and removals can be considered ideal for all environments. Nevertheless, some general guidelines are possible: Continue reading →

Guest Post: The UK Should Fight Corruption Using “Unexplained Wealth Orders”

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Nick Maxwell, Head of Advocacy and Research at Transparency International-United Kingdom, contributes the following guest post:

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has made the fight against global corruption a high priority for his government, declaring that corruption is the cancer that is at the root of many of the world’s problems. But as much as we should applaud the UK’s efforts to support anticorruption measures and good governance abroad, it is equally important that the UK ensure that it is not a safe haven for the proceeds of corruption stolen throughout the world. Yet here the UK has fallen short: We have only seen limited asset restraint and recovery against the proceeds of corruption, especially against those currently associated to power. While estimates of total extent of the problem vary, it is generally agreed that large amounts of unexplained suspicious wealth enter the UK each year and are invested in the British financial system, in property, in luxury goods or in other areas of the economy. And despite the fact that UK law enforcement has the necessary expertise on this issue, the rate of asset recovery by UK agencies of the proceeds of grand corruption is undeniably very low compared to the scale of the problem.

Given the scale of the problem and the inadequacy of the government’s response to date, Transparency International’s UK chapter (TI-UK) established a taskforce of experts to review the legislation in place to deter grand corruption and recover stolen assets that have made their way into or through the UK. The results of the taskforce’s deliberations were published last month as a discussion paper entitled Empowering the UK to recover corrupt assets: New approaches to illicit enrichment and asset recovery; the paper sets out a new proposal for UK law enforcement: the use of an Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO), which would allow UK law enforcement to start proactively questioning suspicious unexplained wealth associated with foreign public officials, and to start civil recovery proceedings against the relevant assets.

Continue reading →

Guest Post: A “Guatemalan Spring”? — Not Yet.

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Alicia Robinson, a student at Harvard Law School, contributes the following guest post:

Guatemala has long been beset by persistent poverty, corruption, and a culture of impunity – an Unholy Trinity that has afflicted much of Central and South America. Moreover, Guatemala has the misfortune of being geographically located at the center of major drug trafficking routes to the North American and European markets, where the unrelenting demand has allowed organized crime to strengthen its hold over the country’s institutions of governance. Yet as Mathieu Tromme’s recent post on this blog highlighted, there are some encouraging signs of change. Most notably, the recent uncovering of a massive tax fraud orechestrated at the highest levels of the executive branch triggered protests that forced the resignation of the vice president – a major victory against impunity in the country.

However, despite this success, and the broad popular support for more action against corruption and impunity, Mr. Tromme may be overly optimistic when he characterizes this this event and the surrounding protests as the inception of a “Guatemalan Spring” that will bring an end to the era of impunity in Guatemala. Corruption still very much riddles every corner of Guatemalan society and the toughest part of the battle lies ahead. Continue reading →

Guest Post: Development Aid–A Blind Spot for EU Anticorruption Efforts

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GAB is pleased to welcome back Jesper Johnsøn, Senior Advisor at the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, who, along with his colleagues Nils Taxell and Thor Olav Iversen, contributes the following guest post:

A new study from the European Parliament entitled Cost of Corruption in Developing Countries – How Effectively is Aid Being Spent? shows that, despite an impressive track record of ambitious anticorruption reforms in countries working toward European Union membership, the EU’s overall anticorruption strategy marginalizes efforts to address corruption through development aid. The EU could spend aid more effectively, the report concludes, if it prioritized corruption control in developing countries. The analysis in the report suggests several measures that the EU should adopt to reduce corruption in its development aid programs:

Continue reading →

Guest Post: The United Nations, Post-Conflict Societies, and Whistleblower Protection — Understanding the Connections

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Ambassador Ugljesa Ugi Zvekic, Former Permanent Representative of the Republic of Serbia to the United Nations Senior Adviser and currently Adjunct Professor at LUISS School of Government in Rome, contributes the following guest post, which is based on research conducted by Ambassador Zvekic’s students Giorgio Sirtori, Alessandro Sabbini, and Alessandro Dowling:

Post-conflict countries are breeding grounds for corruption, due to the combination of weak (or non-existent) institutions, the chaos generated by both the previous conflict, the willingness of international interveners (and donors) to tolerate corruption as the price of stability. Indeed, of the sixteen ongoing international peacekeeping operations across the globe, almost all of these operations take place in some of the most corrupt areas of the world. While it is tempting to say that tackling corruption can and should be left to a later time, after basic needs have been met and basic rights have been guaranteed. But in fact our research, including case studies on international peacekeeping operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Kosovo, reveals that corruption jeopardizes peacekeeping and state-building operations per se, and, consequently, it is vital to incorporate anticorruption efforts at the earliest stages of these kinds of operations.

Given the importance of anticorruption measures in state-building and peacekeeping operations, one issue that should be high up in the agenda of the United Nations is that of whistleblower protection. However, the UN’s own policy on internal whistleblowers has been disappointing, and jeopardizes the UN’s efforts to fight corruption and to promote accountability in post-conflict settings. Continue reading →