FINANCE: ‘Transparency’ Pleads for a Strong Anti-Corruption UN Convention

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Jaya Ramachandran

BERLIN, Jul 3 2003 (IPS) - Transparency International has called upon governments around the world to commit themselves to signing the UN Convention against Corruption and ensure that forthcoming Vienna negotiations lend it sufficient clout.

The final drafting session of the Convention begins in Vienna on July 21.

It is scheduled to be completed by next December for a signing ceremony in Mexico – three years after the UN General Assembly recognised the desirability of an effective international legal instrument against corruption.

Transparency International (TI) has identified seven key issues essential to ensure that the current draft UN Convention against Corruption is an effective and comprehensive legal instrument.

These key issues are: corruption in the private sector, participation of civil society, measures to enhance cooperation at national level, instruments to enhance international cooperation, recovery of corruption proceeds and looted assets, and mechanisms for monitoring implementation.

Besides, the TI strongly favours the Convention coming into force 90 days after deposit of the 20th instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession. A requirement for 40 countries to ratify – as envisaged – constitutes too high a threshold, says the TI.

Jeremy Pope, Executive Director of TI’s Centre for Innovation and Research, says: in the forthcoming negotiations, governments should support and strengthen Article 10 of the Convention.

This, he says, is necessary to prevent conflicts of interest. “A concrete step towards strengthening Article 10 would be to require declarations of all significant financial donations to political parties.”

Article 10 relates to funding of political parties.

Pope favours extending Article 10 to include not only political parties but also candidates.

He considers it important that public officials, including elected politicians, are subject to extradition in the case of corruption.

The TI finds its plea reinforced by the results of its first Global Corruption Barometer survey that gauged the views of 40,838 people in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, USA and Canada.

The survey by the world’s leading anti-corruption organisation was released Thursday.

People in 44 of the 47 countries surveyed were asked: “If you had a magic wand and you could eliminate corruption from one of the following institutions, what would your first choice be?”

The institutions listed were: business licensing, courts of law, customs authorities, education system, political parties, public utilities, medical services, immigration passports, police, private sector, and taxation authorities.

The respondents singled out political parties as the institution from which they would like to eliminate corruption, felt to be most acute in Argentina and Japan.

However, for citizens of Peru and Indonesia, courts of law are the worst hotbeds of corruption. Elsewhere, rooting out corruption in the police, medical services and educational institutions should have priority.

Interpreting the survey, TI Chairman Peter Eigen says: “The people of the world are sending a clear message to political leaders: they have to rebuild the trust of ordinary people.”

The TI has been working around the globe to call political parties to account when it comes to election campaign finance, and in challenging elected politicians to live up to their campaign promises on fighting corruption.

“It is time to recognise the full extent of corruption among political elites in both the developed and developing worlds, and the need to curtail conflicts of interest and political immunity,” says Eigen.

Backing Eigen, Pope says the results of the TI Global Corruption Barometer amount to “a call to governments to heed their citizens”.

“The clearest way they can do so is to make a commitment to sign the forthcoming UN Convention against Corruption and to make sure that it is a Convention with teeth,” says Pope.

The remarks by Eigen and Pope are prompted by some insights into people’s mind given by the survey.

When asked about the future, more people expected corruption to increase than expected it to decline over the next three years. “Three out of ten said that it would increase and one in five said that it would fall. One in four respondents expected the level of corruption to stay the same,” the TI survey reveals.

Colombians and Indonesians were optimistic that corruption levels will fall. However, a clear majority of Cameroonians, Georgians, Indians, Israelis, Dutch, Norwegians, South Africans and Turks expected corruption to increase in their countries.

The TI Barometer survey underlines the need for a strong global convention against corruption and governments for yet another reason: “Corruption hits hardest the poor and the vulnerable, and makes it impossible for millions of people, especially in developing countries, to earn an honest living.”

The TI Global Corruption Barometer survey posed a series of questions about the impact of corruption on value systems, personal and family life, the business environment, and political environment.

“Attitudes towards corruption and its impact vary substantially across the world, and not simply owing to different levels of corruption,” says Fredrik Galtung, TI Head of Research.

Three out of four respondents, polled by Gallup International on behalf of the TI, in Argentina, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Indonesia and Turkey believed that corruption has a very significant effect on political life.

At the other end of the spectrum, in Pakistan and the U.S. more than 50 percent of those surveyed believe that corruption does not have a significant influence on political life.

“The TI Global Corruption Barometer reinforces the belief of citizens that the institution most in need of reform is political parties if corruption is to be overcome,” says Eigen.

“Six out of every seven people around the world think corruption has a significant impact on the political life of their countries.”

Another strong reason to pressure governments to sign the UN Convention against Corruption is to create a favourable business environment that may prove to be a stepping stone to poverty alleviation.

After all, three out of four persons asked for their views in Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Macedonia and Turkey said that corruption has “a very significant impact on the business environment”.