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CORRUPTION: A First U.N. Treaty to Fight a Global Vice

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Dec 11 2003 (IPS) - “Put your faith in justice and do not commit sin so as not to cause corruption,” says the Koran. More than a thousand years after these words of wisdom were written, the world is putting together the first convention against corruption, an ill that consumes as much as 10 percent of global GDP each year.

The United Nation Convention Against Corruption, a document of 71 articles was received with a flood of praise in the southeast Mexican resort of Mérida, where delegates from more than 100 governments gathered Tuesday through Thursday to discuss and put their signatures to the treaty.

The signatories pledged that the text, negotiated over the past three years, will serve as a guide for a full-out war against corruption, a problem that has been around for a long time and has heavy economic and cultural impacts – but has only recently become a priority on the international agenda.

The new convention is an important step, the first of global scope, but there is the risk that it will remain merely as a text of good intentions, as have other U.N. treaties, says Peter Eigen, president of the corruption watchdog Transparency International.

With the money consumed by corruption worldwide – equivalent to 10 percent of the globe’s combined gross domestic product – infant mortality could be reduced by 75 percent and per capita income could grow four-fold, said World Bank officials in Mérida.

Corruption is as old as humanity, but in the past 10 years numerous international organisations have begun to take joint action against it, especially in the areas of government business and private sector corporations.

“The U.N. convention is the cherry on the cake for a series of international efforts against corruption, which if taken in its historic context, are new and remain somewhat immature,” Efraín Acosta, a corruption researcher at the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM), told IPS.

One of the first international instruments against corruption was adopted in 1996 under the auspices of the Organisation of American States (OAS).

Later came others: the 1997 agreement of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a bloc of industrialised nations; and the 1999 instrument of the European Union.

But even in ancient Greece, more than 300 years before the Christian era began, Demosthenes, a respected politician, was accused of embezzling public funds.

In Rome, say historians, in the years 83 to 79 BC, pillaging of conquered peoples and the undermining of state wealth were common phenomena – and were denounced by Cicero.

And the world’s religions have preached against these practices for hundreds of years, but have been unable to eradicate them.

As in the Koran of the Muslim faith, the sacred Judeo-Christian texts also make anti-corruption references. According to the Old Testament, Moses told his peoples more than 2,300 years ago: “Do not accept bribes, because bribes blind the eyes of the wise and pervert the words of the just.”

Today, the U.N. convention strikes out against anything that smells of corruption and maintains that it is a problem that can indeed be eradicated, through commitment and close international cooperation.

The World Bank calculates that corruption can cut a country’s annual growth rate by 0.5 percent, while the International Monetary Fund says foreign investment in countries with a reputation of corruption is almost five percent less than in countries considered less corrupt.

The states that ratify this new multilateral instrument are required to adopt preventative measures and to cooperate in international efforts to go after the perpetrators of corruption, extradite them and seize the products of the crime.

The convention also obligates signatory countries to formulate, apply and maintain policies against corruption that encourage citizen participation and foment the proper management of public affairs and goods, integrity, transparency and balancing of books.

“Corruption has come out of the closet largely as a result of the advance of democratic systems, a fact that has translated into greater citizen demands for transparency, and of advances in the work and influence of the communications media,” said Acosta.

The fight against corrupt practices worldwide has made great progress, but there is still a long way to go, says Transparency International’s Eigen.

Monitoring compliance with the provisions of the new convention will be a very complicated and long-term task, he said.

The treaty states that a year after it is ratified by at least 30 countries, the first international monitoring commissions can be set up.

The ratifications, up to the national legislature of each nation, could take several years, meaning for now that there will be no obligation to prove that progress has been made, according to Eigen.

The Berlin-based Transparency International criticised the fact that the first U.N. Convention Against Corruption says nothing about political party financing and leaves it up to each country to decide whether to apply various of its rules.

By the time the Mérida meet came to a close, more than 100 countries had signed the convention, but Kenya was the only one that ratified it as well, because according to its national laws the approval of the legislative branch.

In the Mexican resort city, the government delegates made statements and presentations declaring support for the convention, and that corruption is an evil that undermines democracy and punishes the poorest.

Time will tell whether the promises and champagne toasts are translated into verifiable fact, or whether they become diluted and go the way of other U.N. agreements, said Acosta.